


Burning Bridges

by below_the_starry_clusters_bright



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Afterlife, Angstober, Apocalypse, Break Up, Car Accidents, Divorced parents, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Gen, Global Warming, Going to Jail, Grief, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Loss of a Lover, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of War, Mentions of childbirth, Parent Death, Politics, Sex Work, Surprise pregnancy, Underage Drinking, airport goodbyes, dating apps, kidfic chapters 23 and 29, parental abandonment, parents fighting, past Damerey, small reference to self-harm in chapter 23, visa issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-22 03:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 26,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/below_the_starry_clusters_bright/pseuds/below_the_starry_clusters_bright
Summary: Reylo angstober ficlets, varying in length and angst."Rey's heart races, like it’s trying to get as far away from her as possible before she breaks it in two."





	1. I Can't Do This Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I have angst. Perhaps you would like some angst, too. Not all chapters will have a happy ending, but anything that needs tagging will be tagged. These prompts are from @_asaiku on twitter. I'll try and update every day, but the fact that I'm already backdating chapter one does not bode well. Title comes from "Burning Bridges" by Delain. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Day One:_“I can’t do this anymore.”_

* * *

She loves him so, so much.

Rey hadn’t known this type of love existed before she met Ben. She’d felt love before, of course. She loved Finn, her foster brother. She loved Rose, the sister she’d gained later in life. She even loved Poe, whose own definition of “love” fit whoever was still lucid enough to consent after a drunken night.

But this love.

This love was different.

This love was standing back to back, weapons raised, daring the world to try and break them. This love was threaded through with an intimacy that went beyond sex (although, _damn_). This love made Rey feel like she finally had a place in the universe. She knew who she was when she was with Ben, and he made her want to be the best version of herself.

The irony of no longer recognising the man she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with isn’t lost on her. Ben is fading before her eyes, and soon he’ll be nothing more than a ghost haunting her memories.

Three years spent back to back, and now the world has finally cracked through.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Ben doesn’t look up from his laptop. Despair sinks further into Rey’s stomach. She’s cooked for him, and he’s brought his work to the table. It’s such a small thing to end a future over, but she worked _hard_ on this meal. Poe had taken her to a deli downtown that imported spices from a country she hadn’t even heard of. She’d spent ages measuring out the ingredients. His plate cools beside him, untouched.

“Ben.”

“Hm?” He flicks a glance at her. “Sorry, sweetheart, I’ll only be a minute. It smells great.”

Rey hasn’t taken a bite of her food. She knows it’d only turn to ash in her mouth. She doesn’t want the rest of her life to consist of these stolen minutes.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Ben doesn’t acknowledge her. With a burst of furious sorrow, Rey reaches across the table and slams the lid of his laptop closed. Ben barely has time to move his fingers. He stares at her, outraged.

“Rey, what the fuck?”

Rey sits back down, not taking her eyes from his. Her heart races, like it’s trying to get as far away from her as possible before she breaks it in two.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Third time’s the charm. Panic flashes through Ben’s eyes before they harden in stubborn ignorance.

“What do you mean?” His voice is controlled, but Rey is attuned to every slight cadence. He knows exactly what she means.

“This,” she says. “Us. You giving every second to that company, as though it’s not sucking away your soul.”

Ben doesn’t deny it. How could he, when his fingers are already itching to re-open his laptop? His hands stiffen and he sets them down in his lap. His lips tremble when he presses them together. Rey holds her breath and waits to see which side of the coin his fear will land on. He’ll either sob or scream. When his mouth twists into a snarl, her stomach tightens. Anger, then.

“I’m doing this for us,” he insists. “I’m trying to build something, _for us_.”

“What about what we have now?”

Their gorgeous apartment. Their friends. Their dog, whining uneasily in the doorway. Ben dismisses it all with a shake of his head.

“It’s not enough for me.”

_You’re not enough for me._

It’s not what he says, but it’s what Rey hears. She blinks back tears and looks down. Her food is congealing. It’ll end up going to waste. She’d worked so hard on it.

There’s a low sigh.

“Rey, come on, don’t cry.”

Ben’s voice is gentler now but he doesn’t move towards her. The table stretches between them, an impasse weighed down with the shiny new cutlery he had insisted they buy only last week. Their old mismatched set had been thrown out with little ceremony. Rey had owned some of those spoons since college.

“I feel like I don’t know you anymore,” she whispers into the strands of hair falling in front of her face.

“I haven’t changed.” And then, because that doesn’t ring true to either of them, “I’m becoming the man I’m supposed to be. Snoke says –”

“Snoke,” Rey scoffs. “Is he the one making you put in eighteen-hour days?”

Ben bristles. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I? That’s the first time in weeks I’ve seen that laptop closed while you’re still awake.”

The tips of Ben’s ears burn red, and his mouth works over itself. He’s getting flustered. The moment his eye starts twitching, Rey knows he’ll stop trying to stay calm.

_Five, four, thr_ –

There it is. The twitch. Ahead of schedule. Ben slaps his hands on the table, rattling the wine glass. He propels himself to his feet. Rey’s only a second behind him. She’ll never match him in height, but she won’t be intimidated. Even with the table between them, he seems to tower over her. She can’t breathe with him in the same apartment anymore.

“You’re not leaving me over this,” Ben spits. It sounds like a threat, but Rey honestly doesn’t know if he intends it to be. There’s a rough edge to his voice she hasn’t heard before. “I would have thought that someone who came from nothing –”

“Is that really what you think of me?”

“– would be glad of some stability!”

Rey flings an arm out, narrowly avoiding knocking over the vase of fresh flowers before her. She points to the belongings that help make up their home.

“Stability isn’t just things, Ben!”

It’s Ben’s turn to scoff. “That’s easy to say when you’re not the one who paid for them.”

Rey’s breath leaves her in a rush. The fact that Ben had always earned more than her has been a sore spot he’s had to soothe over the years. She had always melted reluctantly beneath his soft words and softer kisses. He liked to look after her, he’d promised. It made him feel needed and important.

He’s never held it over her like this before.

“And you’re right,” Ben forges ahead, digging the knife in, “stability isn’t just things. It’s this apartment, which I pay for. It’s groceries, which I pay for. It’s having the freedom to plan for the future. And all those dreams of yours, who’s going to fund them? Are you going to cobble enough money together by jumping from failed start-up to failed start-up?”

Rey’s words catch in her throat. Ben’s angry features blur through a haze of her tears. Where’s the man who believes in her? He must be somewhere deep within this sneering stranger, scrabbling to get out and comfort her. Rey wonders how far she’d have to dig before she found him.

Ben swats the lid of his laptop. The dull thud sounds much louder in the emptiness his pointed questions had left.

“I’m doing this so that you can have the life you deserve,” Ben says, his ire fading. “I want you to have all those things.”

Rey nods mechanically. Her mind is blank but her body knows what it has to do. It allows her one last look at the man she hoped she’d marry, and then carries her on shaking legs to the door.

“I _will_ have those things,” she murmurs, dragging her keys out of the bowl on the small table. Her fingers flex over the keychain in the shape of an R. “Goodbye, Ben.”

“Rey, wait –”

“Happy anniversary,” she throws out over her shoulder as she leaves.


	2. You Said You Loved Me

* * *

Day Two: _"You said you loved me"_

* * *

Rey shivers inside the cell. Moonlight slants in through the metal bars. Each bar has nicks in it, as though some desperate prisoner had tried to claw their way out. Even if they’d managed it, they’d have only succeeded in falling to their deaths. Snoke’s fortress is built into a mountain, with dark waves crashing against the rocks below. The sound of the sea is still a novelty to Rey, after so many years growing up in the desert.

She wonders if it’ll be the last thing she hears.

The morbid thought leaves her the moment it’s entertained. As far as she knows, whoever betrayed her didn’t know the names of any other Resistance members. She’s the only one Snoke has locked away, and she’ll be made an example of. He’ll have to discourage the idea that spies can infiltrate the fortress under the guise of employment.

Rey leans her head back against the stone wall and closes her eyes. She’d been a terrible maid. She hardly knew one end of a feather duster from another, and she’d left smeared marks on most of the windows. Ben had laughed when he saw her efforts.

Her sigh mists in front of her.

Ben.

The moment he’d learned she was a spy was seared into her mind. She’d never seen anyone look so hurt. He’d tried to hide it afterwards with shouted commands, but a thousand years of fury couldn’t override that one second of heartbreak. As guards had poured into the room and taken Rey roughly by the arms, she’d tried to call out to him.

Her first mistake had been to call him Ben. Her second was to let her voice break on a sob.

He shivered, and then stiffened. Ben Solo, who had been fighting so hard to break back into the light, drowned in the waves of darkness flooding Kylo Ren. Kylo strode to her and grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“I’ll not be moved by your weeping,” he snarled. “You are a liar and a traitor.”

The eyes that had so often gazed on her with warmth were pitiless. He waited for her to say something, but Rey couldn’t deny the accusations. She _had_ lied to him, and she _had_ betrayed the love that had grown so unexpectedly between them. When she stayed silent, Kylo growled low in his throat.

“Take her to the dungeon,” he instructed a guard holding Rey in place. “Allow no visitors.”

With one last burning look, he turned away.

Now, Rey replays the scene over and over again. She should have silenced Hux before he gleefully announced her true allegiances. She should have insisted on changing her secret rendezvous spot with Ben. They were fools to believe no one knew where they had been stealing away to these last few months. But she’d been happy, and happiness had made her complacent. She was even starting to believe that she could turn Ben from his poisonous devotion to Snoke. And now all of that is ruined.

Footsteps approach her cell. Rey springs to her feet, automatically primed for attack even though she doubts the presence of a guard. If Kylo Ren hadn’t been Snoke’s ward, and a feared warrior in his own right, someone might have paid her a visit by now. But Kylo had staked his claim, even if what he saw as his only truly belonged to Ben Solo.

Ben Solo is nowhere to be found in the hulking figure that lets himself into Rey’s cell. He shares all of Ben’s features, of course, but they’re distorted by hate. Rey fights back her despair. He’s murmured too many of his insecurities for her not to know the thoughts that must be weighing on him. She needs to make him understand he was never a pawn in her scheme.

“Ben –”

“Kylo Ren,” he cuts across. “You should learn the name of the man you will beg for your life.”

The threat has barely left his lips before he looks away. Even now, he can’t threaten her. Guilt squeezes Rey’s chest. She was never meant to engage with Kylo more than necessary, let alone uncover the soft, sweet man beneath. Falling in love with him had been the most wonderful mistake.

“Emperor Snoke told me about the duplicity of the rebels, but I never thought…” Kylo’s steeliness fades along with his voice. He shakes his head and fixes Rey with such a lost look that she feels her heart shatter. “You said you loved me.”

“I do!” She crosses the cell and stares beseechingly up at him. “Ben, I do, I do. I have never loved anyone else.”

Kylo is unmoved. “But you love your cause more.”

Rey tries to deny it. She _wants_ to deny it.

“How can I put my feelings above people’s lives?” she asks on a sigh. “Snoke’s plans for war will decimate us.”

“Sacrifices must be made for the good of the Empire,” Kylo says, the words well-worn like they’ve been repeated a hundred times.

“And what is Snoke sacrificing?” Rey demands. “A few dozen pigs, so that he can throw another lavish feast while the towns around him starve?”

“The townspeople must work harder,” Kylo says stubbornly. “Emperor Snoke cannot bow to their every whim as though they’re helpless infants.”

The opinion isn’t his own. Rey knows that. Snoke has been filling his ears with lies since before he could talk. Still, the words strike at a hollow place within her chest that she has never been able to fill.

“Was that my failing?” she asks, restrained. “I didn’t work hard enough to deserve food in Jakku?”

Kylo’s eyes widen a fraction. He’s stricken. Good. He’s wiped away enough of her tears to know how deeply growing up alone and starving had affected her. He’s also whispered enough words of awed praise for her strength and resilience to know that he cannot lump her in with lazy townspeople without it ringing false.

“You are – you are the exception,” he says with audibly false confidence.

“Because you know me?” Rey challenges. “Or because you love me? Get to know and love the townspeople, and I promise that you could never accuse them of idleness.”

His eyes search hers. Behind the bravado, Rey sees the man she fell in love with. He’s gazing back at her, wordlessly infatuated.

“I… I am not here to listen to your treason,” Kylo says, blinking back Ben Solo.

Rey gathers her patience. It had taken weeks to coax Ben from the hard shell which had been forced upon him, and now he’s as skittish as a cat once more.

“Why did you come?” she asks.

Kylo takes a step away from her and to the side, leaving a clear path to the cell door. He hadn’t locked it, Rey realises. Cautious hope rises within her.

“The guards are incapacitated.” He tilts his head to an imperious angle, as though it separates him from his act of devotion. “They won’t be for long. You should hurry.”

He’s letting her go.

She’s broken his trust, and he’s letting her go.

Overcome, Rey surges upwards and throws her arms around his neck. Kylo follows her down out of instinct, which quickly turns into desire. They’ve shared too many tentative kisses to count. There have been kisses fuelled by lust, or frustration, or a simple _I missed you today_. Never has their embrace been filled with such desperation. Rey can feel it fusing their lips together. Parting is unthinkable. It’s heresy, it’s an abomination, it’s…

Inevitable.

She pulls away with one last sigh. Kylo’s arms stay fixed around her waist for a moment longer, before he too steps back into his role. They’re both breathless.

“Come with me,” Rey pants.

Kylo shakes his head. “I won’t fight for traitors.”

A thousand arguments perch themselves on Rey’s tongue, ready to fly out and persuade Kylo that he’s wrong. But she doesn’t have time. She needs to escape.

“I love you,” she reminds him. “Never doubt that. No matter what Snoke tries to tell you.”

Something flickers in Kylo’s expression at the mention of his master.

“Emperor Snoke fights for a better world. The only better world is one with you in it. Both things can be true at once.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, and Rey isn’t about to argue. She moves to slip past him, but he catches her by the arm. The darkness has risen within him again. It blackens his tone. “The next Resistance fighter we capture will face a far crueller fate. That’s the price of your freedom.”

“Then I’ll make sure no one gets caught,” Rey says lightly, tugging her arm free. “Be safe.”

She leaves him like that, a prisoner in an open cell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise these ficlets won’t always end with Rey leaving Ben. Hope you enjoyed!


	3. You Weren't Here When I Needed You The Most

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tags! A short one today, fellas.

* * *

Day Three: _"You weren't here when I needed you the most."_

* * *

Ben’s first grandchild screams and screams and screams.

“She’s got her mother’s lungs,” he jokes, handing the baby over to his daughter.

He’d made the same joke to Rey when Padmé was born. Rey, exhausted and half-delirious, had snuggled the newborn to her chest and breathed in her scent. Ben knelt at the side of the hospital bed and sworn that nothing would touch his family.

The vow lasted for twenty-five years. Enough time to give them another child, a son, and watch the babies grow into confident, curious children, who in turn grew into adventurous and headstrong teenagers. By the time Padmé and Leon had graduated college, Ben finally felt settled enough to enjoy the life he had built.

And then, the accident.

Ben doesn’t remember much of it. He had been told that Rey had been taken instantly, without pain or awareness. A good death, he was assured, as if there was such a thing.

It’s been five years. Five years of talking to Rey’s photographs and imagining her light laughter in response. She’d scold him for wasting time in dark rooms when he should be out fixing the garden fence. She’d accuse him of liking the sound of his own voice too much. And then she’d scrunch her nose in laughter and kiss him.

Some days, the worst days, he forgets the exact lilt of her voice.

“We’re naming her Rey.”

In the hospital room, Padmé smiles up at him. She looks so much like her mother. Ben’s tears choke him.

“That’s a good name,” he manages after a minute.

Back home, Ben draws the curtains and blocks out the sunlight. This is a day for celebration, not mourning, but he can only feel the weight of loss settle on him. His life was meant to be shared with Rey.

He picks up his favorite wedding photo from its prized place on the mantlepiece. It was a candid snap taken by Poe. Ben and Rey hadn’t noticed him. In the picture, Ben nuzzles into Rey’s neck while she laughs, her eyes bright and sparkling. Love almost radiates from beyond the frame.

As ever, the sight of Rey vibrant with joy clenches around Ben’s heart. She was as beautiful at twenty-two as she was at fifty. There should have been so many different forms of her beauty to come. Ben can almost picture it. Rey would have aged with dignity and grace. She would have let her skin wrinkle and only offer token complaints. She would have stopped dyeing her hair once the grey overcame it. She would have been utterly alluring in thick glasses and a shapeless dress, Ben just knows it. It’s a travesty that the world has been denied an old Rey. A cosmic theft.

“Our girl did well today,” he tells the photograph. “They’ll make great parents, her and that feckless husband of hers.”

Ben privately likes Ganner, but too much time has passed for him to drop the stern father-in-law act now. Rey had liked him, too, despite only meeting him twice. She’d thought he was an even-tempered match for the child that had inherited her father’s temper. She’d had such a gift for seeing the truth in someone.

“They named the baby after you,” Ben continues. He chuckles, but there’s little humor in it. “We’ll run out of family members to honor soon enough.”

His fingerprints are all over the glass. He’d only cleaned it this morning, and he doesn’t want to fetch the cleaning supplies again. His body is weary and aching from the excitement of the day. He shuffles over to his armchair and lowers himself down with a groan. His joints haven’t weathered the years well. No part of him has.

He falls asleep in his armchair, and doesn’t wake again.

A cool hand on his cheek stirs him. He’s weightless, both everywhere and nowhere. Rey stands before him in the blank aether of time. She’s as Ben remembers her, down to the beaming smile.

“Took you long enough,” she says, before flinging herself into his arms.

He catches her. His body remembers, even if he isn’t sure he actually has a body anymore. They kiss as though they’d been parted for a day or two at most. It’s been so long since Ben has thought about Rey without an undercurrent of pain that he almost doesn’t recognise the uncomplicated, pure happiness coursing through him. His grief has lifted. He’s light once more.

“You can’t kiss your way out of this one,” he warns, even as her captures her lips again.

Rey pulls away and pouts. Her arms are still locked around his neck. Her fingers brush against his hair, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Hmm,” she says, tilting her head and smiling. “Why not?”

“You weren’t here when I needed you the most.”

Rey’s smile fades into something sadder. Her grip tightens, like a warning against whatever would try and separate them again.

“When was that?” she asks.

“Every day.”


	4. How Are You Not Terrified?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot science and will not pretend to science. I plead fanfic physics and your indulgence. Thank you for your comments and kudos!

* * *

Day Four: _"How are you not terrified?"_

* * *

The sky is a sickly, bruised yellow. Rey peers out of the window of her high-rise apartment and tries to stop her stomach from churning. She isn’t sure exactly how long is left before oxygen runs out. The news reports have long since turned to static. There are only so many variations of “We’re all going to die” to be reported on. Everyone has gone home to be with their families in the last few hours of habitable Earth.

If Rey looks closely at the streets below, she can see the bodies of those unlucky enough to be caught outside when poison began to seep through the air. She doesn’t look closely. All forms of communication are down, and she hasn’t heard from Finn or Rose in days. Poe is off in some military bunker somewhere, and Leia –

Leia’s health had been failing long before the atmosphere turned against them. A few lungfuls had been the death of her. That was before anyone knew what lay in store for them. As birds began to fall from the sky and trees withered to their roots, it became clear. Nature (or God, or Gaia, or maybe they were all the same in the end) had reached its breaking point. Humans had polluted it, and now it would pollute humans.

Rey doesn’t realise Ben is behind her until she feels the solid weight of him at her back. She hums and leans into him. He rests his chin on her shoulder and kisses her neck.

“Do you really want to spend your final few hours like this?” he asks. “I’m sure there are _some_ things on the bucket list we haven’t tried yet.”

Rey smiles but doesn’t answer. She wants to tease him back or give into his seduction, but the reality of what’s about to happen arrests her. There’s so much she hasn’t done. Maybe she would have liked to have a family. Maybe she would have been happy with only Ben and their friends. So many paths have been closed off before she had even thought about wandering down them.

The unfairness of it strikes her. She’d dutifully recycled everything she could. She’d stopped using straws. She’d even tried going vegan for awhile, although the reality of growing up starving meant that clutching at any available food was ingrained in her. And now she’s going to die, gasping for air in an undignified heap.

Ben’s steady breaths blow against her skin. Usually that’s calming, or scintillating. Now it bewilders her.

“How are you not terrified?” she asks him.

Ben wraps his arms around her. He’s a harbor in this tempest. Like a true scavenger, Rey takes every comfort he has to offer and still seeks more.

“I’ve accepted it,” he murmurs.

“Just like that?” Rey asks, her eyes fixed on the sky.

“There’s nothing I can do. Nothing any of us can do.” His massive body lifts in a shrug. “You’ve had to struggle and fight your entire life. And I love that about you,” he says quickly as Rey stiffens. “I do. If you hadn’t been so persistently certain that there was good in me, I never would have left the First Order.”

“I would have dragged you out of there if you’d waited one more day,” Rey mutters. That law firm had been eating away at a soul she had already claimed as hers. She could never have allowed him to stay there and rot.

Ben holds her closer.

“You’re a fighter, and that’s one of your greatest strengths. But,” he continues gently, “it also means that you don’t know when to give up.”

Rey scowls. She can’t believe Ben is pulling his signature “I’m going to tell you the truth even thought it’s painful” move even in the face of certain death. It’s so like him to be so blunt even at the end.

And this _is_ the end. Even Rey, queen of denial, can’t ignore the way the Earth is laboring on with jagged breaths. They won’t live to see the next morning.

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” She blinks back tears. “Not when there’s so much left for us.”

“I’ll find you in the next life,” Ben vows, “and I’ll somehow convince you to fall in love with me again, and then I’ll marry you under blue skies.”

It’s only been a few weeks since the air discolored, but a vibrant sky already sounds like something out of a fairytale. Rey wants the future he paints so fiercely that her chest aches.

“Do you promise?” she asks.

“I promise.” Ben turns her around and seals the oath with a kiss. His lips linger close to hers. “Now, we can sit around and cry about how unfair this all is, or I can make you come so many times that you forget it’s the end of the world.”

Rey’s already halfway out of her dress.


	5. Maybe It's Too Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm absolutely skirting the angst tag here. It started off angsty, I swear. I’m also in a bit of a rush with this one, so there’s less Ben/Rey interaction than there probably should be. I think I’d like to do a part two using another prompt, so look out for that!
> 
> The vibe towards dating apps is a little negative in this fic, but that doesn’t reflect my own opinion. Let me know any dating app success stories you might have. Thank you for your comments and kudos, hope you enjoy!

* * *

Day Five: "_Maybe it's too late"_

* * *

Ben sits in the coffee shop with the guilty certainty that everyone around him knows what he’s just downloaded and is judging him accordingly. It isn’t porn. He sort of wishes it was. In his mind, porn carries less of a social stigma than dating apps.

But the loneliness is getting a little unbearable. Ben’s been lonely before, of course. The only difference is that now he’s lonely all by himself. There’s no office culture to distract himself with (First Order office culture being primarily screaming at subordinates and then taking cocaine) and no other inmates around (Ben was less involved with both screaming and cocaine during his time in prison).

He’d never been the type to go to a bar with single-minded focus. He’d had a couple of one-night stands in college, but mostly he’d been too determined to succeed academically to think of anything else. Once he’d been recruited into the First Order, he’d never had to seek out company. There had always been women around, sometimes paid, sometimes not. It was a heady feeling, to be fawned over and desired. He’d had money and power and Snoke, who’d had even more money and power.

But it had left him feeling curiously empty. He’d wanted companionship for more than a couple of hours a night. He’d wanted someone to come home to, who might cluck at him in disapproval for forgetting to pick up milk and then kiss away his apologies. None of the women he took back with him wanted to turn his apartment into a home.

And so, in the cliché of the heartsick, Ben had buried himself in work and drugs. Then he’d buried his fist into another’s man’s face, again and again, until his knuckles were scarlet and there were loose teeth on the sidewalk. The man had almost died, all over a flippant comment about Ben blocking the path.

Snoke tried to pull strings with the judge, but Ben was determined to take his punishment (on a reduced sentence; he wasn’t a complete masochist). He quit the First Order, did his time, and now the world feels even more unfriendly than it had five years ago.

And now he’s downloaded a dating app on his shiny new phone. He’s not sure if it’s a step forwards or backwards. He sets a hastily taken photo of the coffee cup in front of him as his profile picture because he has to put _something_, but it’ll get flagged soon enough. The problem is, he doesn’t have any pictures he thinks will make a great first impression. His most recent pictures are from First Order events, and he looks like a coked-up jackass in all of them. He _was_ a coked-up jackass in all of them. Selfies aren’t his style. He could always use his mugshot, just to get it out of the way.

_Sure, I did five years in prison for almost killing someone, but would you like to see my anger management certificate?_

That’s his bio sorted.

Rather than try and climb over the giant stumbling block he’s come across, Ben thinks back on the anger management course. He _had_ been given a letter of completion from the course, but he might draft up something fancier. It could go right next to his college degree.

_This Hereby Certifies That Ben Solo Can Successfully Deal With Inconvenience Without Losing His Shit._

It would take pride of place in his apartment, which had been vacant since he’d gone away. The walls are too bare since he’d taken down newspaper articles about his company’s ruthlessness. The frames left discolored patches, as though the building itself had been stained by his misdeeds. It’s not like he can put any family photos up. That would only test the inner calm a piece of paper says he’s achieved.

Ben looks back at the app. He gives more consideration to the profiles he sees than he’s probably supposed to. He spends upwards of a minute on each woman, trying to read between the lines of _Living That Plant Life!!!_ Does that mean Stephanie is a fan of veganism or pot? And what the hell does Anna mean by _Little/DD/Brat_. Is that her bra size? How is he so confused when this is his first language?

A few minutes pass and he doesn’t get any matches. He isn’t upset. He wouldn’t want to match with a bio-less coffee cup either.

Maybe it’s too late. Maybe love and softness are too much to hope for when he has so many jagged edges.

“That’s a bad app.”

Ben jumps at the voice. He twists in his seat to see a waitress peering over his shoulder. Her lips are pursed in thought and there’s a speculative hint to her fine features.

“Excuse me?” he asks, stunned by both her rudeness and her prettiness.

“Most of the women on there are bots or organ traffickers,” she informs him.

Ben wonders if these jobs will combine during the inevitable robot uprising. He considers saying this, then thinks better of it.

“I did wonder about all the Russian models within a one-mile radius.”

The waitress’ laugh isn’t as dainty as she is. It’s deep and a little too loud. It sounds like it comes from the heart. Ben is smitten. He tries not to stare at her chest while reading her nametag.

Rey.

Ben wants to introduce himself to get them on an even footing, but his mouth is dry. It absolutely figures that this would happen to him. A dry mouth in a coffee shop, what the fuck.

“New to the city?” Rey asks, moving around him to clear the cups left by the people before him.

“No, I just…” _Grew up here, fucked up here, went to prison here, feel completely alone here._ “No.”

“Well, if you’re looking to meet new people, there are better options than an app.” Rey pauses. Her eyes wander over his face before she turns her attention back to the cups. “My friends work in a bar and I was going to head over there after my shift.”

Ben studies her. That’s an invite, right? Or at least a hint. She meets his eyes again and smiles.

“Which bar?” he asks, like it matters.

Rey’s smile widens.


	6. Why Are You Leaving?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly OOC Rey here for angst purposes. Thanks for your comments and kudos! <3

* * *

Day Six:_ "Why are you leaving?"_

* * *

Rey wakes in a comfortable cocoon of warmth and musk. Awareness returns slowly as she opens her eyes and lets them adjust to the dim, early-morning light struggling through the curtains. Her body is limp and sated after a good night’s rest, and an even better series of orgasms –

Oh no.

The annoyingly familiar sight of Ben Solo’s bedroom ceiling sharpens into view. Rey stifles a groan. This is the fourth time this month she’s woken up like this. That’s four times too many considering the deep animosity she holds for the man currently snoring softly beside her.

Fucking him is bad enough, but falling asleep in his bed afterwards is just plain stupid. It’s cosmically unfair that they’re both the type of people to pass out more or less straight after sex. That little misfortune doesn’t even feature on Rey’s top ten list of why she hates Ben Solo. Sure, he does that thing with his tongue that drives her _nuts_, but he’s also defending Roger Snoke against allegations of corruption. Snoke is clearly guilty, and corruption is far from the worst thing he could be tried for considering his laundry list of misdeeds, but Ben is still defending him. And, Rey is loath to admit, doing a damn good job of it. He’d torn apart her arguments in court today like tissue paper. It was why she’d agreed to go home with him again last night. To blow off some steam.

_You blew more than that_, Rey thinks, disgusted with herself. What’s wrong with her that she’d abandon all of her morals to hatefuck someone who’d gladly let a monster roam the streets?

The bed suddenly feels claustrophobic. Rey wriggles against the arm trapping her in her bad decisions. Ben feels like a furnace. With a low, masculine grunt, he shifts and tightens his grip.

“Why are you leaving?” he mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

“I need to go,” Rey says, tugging at his arm.

Ben draws her into his chest. His sluggish breaths are warm against her hair.

“Don’go yet. We could get breakfast,” he says, yawning through the suggestion. “Or I could make you something. You like pancakes?”

Rey fucking loves pancakes, but she’s not about the admit that. Sleepy, snuggly Ben Solo is not something she’s equipped to deal with. Each time she’s stayed over at his before now, they’ve woken up at the same time thanks to their insistent alarms. They’d dressed without looking at each other, only speaking to throw out a barbed comment here and there.

This…_softness_ is new. She doesn’t like it. She can’t blur the lines between them any more than she already has.

Ben makes a sound like a kicked puppy when Rey finally breaks free of him. It shouldn’t be endearing, but it is.

“I need to leave,” she tells him, half-stumbling around his room in an effort to find her clothes.

Ben sits up in bed. The covers fall away, exposing his chest. Rey determinedly does not look at him, even when she hears the small satisfied noise of him stretching.

“If you give me a minute, I’ll call you a cab. Or I can walk you home.”

His voice is still muted with traces of sleep. Rey turns to see him blink lazily at her. His hair is mussed and he looks more relaxed than she’s ever seen him. Something that isn’t hatred or arousal thrums through her. It’s something gentle, and entirely unwelcome.

“This was a mistake,” she tells him as she stomps down that fuzzy feeling. “Being with you is a mistake.”

Ben frowns. For all that his temper is legendary, he only seems confused. Hurt tinges his expression.

“Then why did you come home with me?”

“Because you were there!” Rey frustration at herself cuts edges into her tone. “Just like you’re somehow _always_ fucking there! Do you just hang around the court house hoping to run into me?”

“Pretty much.” Ben’s tone is steady but there’s a flush stealing over his pale skin. “Thought maybe you’d want to get dinner some time.”

“With you?”

_You’re being cruel_, Rey thinks, but she can’t stop herself. All of her self-loathing and frustration and fear burns through her. She’s going to lose the case against Snoke, and he’ll be free to ruin even more lives. Her friends are going to find out she’s been sleeping with the enemy, and for nothing. Ben is going to let her down, repeatedly and horribly. The little glimmers of goodness she can spy in him will be crushed under his ruthless ambition. And at the end of it all, Rey is going to be just as alone as ever.

Furious at herself and the world, she fixes Ben with a contemptuous look.

“I _hate_ you. If I could punch you in the face every time you take another step towards freeing Snoke, I would. Instead, I have to settle for this.” She waves a hand at the crumpled sheets. “But this was the last time. Don’t talk to me outside of court again. You disgust me.”

She doesn’t look at him as she storms out.

She’s back in his bed three days later.


	7. Give Me Another Chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of the events in chapter two, where Ben finds out Rey is a Resistance spy but lets her go anyway. Please continue to enjoy the vague fantasy setting I definitely did not put enough thought into and continue to disregard. Thank you for your comments and kudos, they really do brighten my day!

* * *

Day Seven:_ "Give me another chance."_

* * *

“You let her escape.”

Kylo, kneeling before the Emperor, flinches at his Master’s tone. Emperor Snoke rarely raises his voice, and so Kylo has had to become attuned to the subtle distinctions. Right now, the Emperor is incredulous to the point of rage. His soft words will end in violence sooner rather than later.

And yet, Kylo doesn’t regret his actions. Rey is safe from harm. The relief the knowledge brings is tempered by how they parted. Flickers of betrayal stab his chest. Rey needs to be alive and well to account for the months of lies she’s been feeding him. But she _does_ love him. He believes that much, at least.

The Emperor waits for Kylo to fill the silence. Kylo doesn’t speak. If Emperor Snoke knew his role in Rey’s escape – that he hadn’t _let_ her flee so much as actively ensured it – then there would already be bloodshed.

“She is a Resistance member,” Emperor Snoke continues, narrowing his eyes. “Sent here to destroy me, and yet you – my faithful ward – would allow her to spread her poison further.”

“I have reason to believe she was only gathering information,” Kylo tells Emperor Snoke’s slippered feet.

“Is this reason your infatuation with her?”

Kylo doesn’t dare breathe. Of _course_ his Master knows about his feelings for Rey. He knows every thought that flits through his mind. He probably also knows that Kylo took the lead role in letting Rey go free and is only waiting to see how far Kylo will go to lie about it. Sweat gathers beneath his leather gloves.

“I am not ill-informed of what goes on in my own fortress.” Emperor Snoke sounds almost amused, which is surely a precursor to pain. “It’s only a wonder it took you this long to discover the truth about her.”

It feels wrong to hear the Emperor talk about Rey. He hasn’t said anything threatening or even derogatory about her, and yet Kylo still wants to demand his silence. He feels the tugging, urgent need to protect Rey from his Master’s interest.

“I am not angry with you, child,” Emperor Snoke says gently. “You are too weak not to be expected to grab at every small offering of affection, false though it may be.”

Kylo holds himself still, but he feels the muscle beneath his eye leap. Rey lied to him, yes, but her love was real. _Is_ real. He holds onto that thought.

“Did you think she cared for you?” the Emperor croons. “Foolish boy. She left you the moment her ruse was revealed.”

Well, yes, but only because she was in danger. Why is Emperor Snoke twisting things in such a way? He has only ever wanted the best for his ward before now.

Kylo’s heart sinks. His Master has only ever wanted the best for him. He wouldn’t be saying such horrible things unless they were to Kylo’s benefit. Unless they were true.

“She demands your trust,” Emperor Snoke muses, “and yet she chose to deceive you for all this time. She thinks I am a cruel man, and yet she leaves you here alone to face my wrath. She pledges her faithfulness to you, and yet she already has a lover within the Resistance. She loves you – and yet, and yet, and yet.”

Kylo’s mouth is dry. Rey has a lover? That couldn’t be true. She had bled the first time they – their first time. But his Master wouldn’t lie. Had Rey been sneaking out of the fortress to meet with another man?

His cheeks burn. He’s been made a fool of.

“I see you recognize the truth,” Emperor Snoke murmurs. Kylo hates the pity in his tone. He has been weak, and worse, has been seen to be weak. “Men like you are not meant to be loved. You have a higher purpose. Tell me, has the life I have given you not been enough?”

Finally, Kylo snaps his head up. He will not allow his Master to doubt his devotion. Not when it’s the closest thing he has to love.

“It has been enough,” he says vehemently. “You are wise and just.”

“Evidently not wise enough.” Emperor Snoke sighs and shakes his scarred head. “Oh, my boy, how could you think she loved you?”

Kylo’s head dips. He’d so often asked himself what he had done to deserve Rey’s attention, never mind her love. He’d never been able to come up with an answer, but always thanked some lucky star or attentive god. Rey had always had such conviction in her _I love you_s that it seemed blasphemous to doubt them. History was filled with the woe of men who had questioned the gods’ gifts.

But Rey was no gift. She was a trick, played on him because of his access to the Emperor. She would just as soon have fallen into bed with Hux if it had brought her closer to her goal.

Kylo holds his fractured heart together with rage. It burns and welds until he can almost mistake the pain for purpose.

“Give me another chance,” he says, looking up again to meet his Master’s shrewd gaze. “I will find her, and this time she will answer for her crimes.”

Emperor Snoke tilts his head in thought. A small smirk plays about his lips as he nods once.

“Drag her back in chains,” he instructs.

Heartbroken and vengeful, Kylo rises.


	8. I Love You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come listen to "I Found" by Amber Run and sob with me. Thank you for your comments and kudos!

* * *

Day Eight: _"I love you."_

* * *

It’s an hour before dawn, and neither of them have slept yet. The glow of streetlights reaches into the shadowy corners of their bedroom. Rey stares sightlessly at the wall. Ben’s breaths are deep and even, but he hasn’t relaxed his grip on her waist in hours. His body, warm and solid, fits around hers like they were made for each other.

She’s going to lose him today.

The thought clutches at her heart and throat. Her breath stutters. Ben’s hold tightens as he presses slow kisses into her hair.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs. “It’s alright, sweetheart.”

“It’s _not_ alright,” Rey tells him, tears leaking down her cheeks. “This isn’t fair.”

“It’s more than fair.” They’ve had this fight so many times before. By now, Ben is hoarse and resigned. “The things I’ve done… Rey, the lives I’ve ruined…”

Rey clutches at his arm. “You’re not that person anymore.”

“No, but those actions will always be mine. I have to pay for them.”

Bone-deep exhaustion stops Rey from reciting the next lines of her argument. Ben is determined to atone for his actions with the First Order. He fought so hard to become the man he thought she deserved. It would be the height of selfishness to ask him to remain a free man for her. But, God, Rey wants to ask him. Hasn’t she earned the right to be selfish?

At least Ben has been given him the dignity of self-surrender. They’ve been granted this prolonged, almost-wordless goodbye. Watching the seconds tick away feels like its own form of punishment.

“I deserve more than eighteen months,” Ben says after too many seconds have gone by. Quiet revulsion seeps into his tone. “That isn’t even a month for every person I killed.”

It’s eighteen months more than he should have received, but Rey won’t start that argument again. Even after he had betrayed his old gang and allowed Leia to call in every favor from the justice system she could, Ben hadn’t been allowed to escape jail time altogether. He and Rey were outraged at the sentence, for different reasons.

“Please don’t forget who you are in there,” Rey says, huddling back into his chest as though he can take her with him. “Don’t forget the life you’ve worked to make.”

“I won’t,” Ben promises. “I’ll keep out of trouble, and I’ll stay clean, and I’ll only take a prison boyfriend if he’s really, really pretty.”

Rey’s laugh turns into a sob. How can he joke about this? She’ll be constantly thinking of him, constantly worried about him. So not that much different from than what she currently does, except she won’t be able to text him in the middle of a busy day or call him down from the study.

“You won’t be alone.” Ben kisses the words into her hair. “Even if I’m not with you, you’ll never be alone again.”

Rey closes her eyes so that she doesn’t have to see the clock.

“I love you,” she whispers.

Ben holds her tightly. “I love you, too.”


	9. Do You Still Love Him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past Damerey here folks, if that's not your thing then skip on ahead! This chapter is set in England, post-World War One. I feel oddly...inadequate sharing this chapter. A drabble-a-day style can't do justice to the absolute horror of the Great War. Still, I wanted to write a small snapshot of grief.
> 
> Thank you for your continued comments and kudos ❤

* * *

Day Nine: _"Do you still love him?"_

* * *

A week before they’re due to marry, Ben catches Rey gazing at Poe’s faded photograph.

“Do you still love him?” he asks quietly.

Rey jumps from her seat and spins to face him. He stands in the doorway of her uncle’s sitting room, his sad eyes fixed on the frame in her hand.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, flustered.

“My mother wanted to finalize some details with your uncle.” He flicks her a gaze filled with hurt he’s struggling to mask. “I thought I would come along and see you.”

She fights down the guilt that surges. The country is still struggling to acclimate to its new, widespread grief after losing so many of its sons in the Great War. Rey is no different. In the three years since the bells rang out the end of the War, she has felt every emotion possible. The feelings are still a jumbled mess inside her head, tied now with the complication of falling in love again.

“Do you still love him?” Ben repeats in the same soft tone.

Rey doesn’t know how to answer.

_Yes_, would be the most obvious response.

Before the beautiful engagement ring that Ben had given her, there had sat on her finger a simple band given to her by Poe Dameron. She had shrieked and squealed as he whirled her around, his beaming smile the centre of her universe. He was her first love. Her only love, so she had thought in that happy moment.

She had wanted to get married before he was called to duty in the trenches, but Poe wouldn’t hear of it.

“Give me something to look forward to,” he had said, kissing the tip of her nose.

Rey had planned a future around him. She had imagined their children – how many they would have, their features, their voices, even which local schools they might attend – and looked forward to the day she would run her own house and care for her own family. Her uncle was an honest man, but he could be distant and was not prone to affection. Poe was generous with his love. In turn, everyone loved him.

There was not a family in the town who hadn’t been somehow affected by loss, yet Rey privately thought that they spared whatever extra grief they had left to mourn Poe. Even Ben, who would later admit to having been in love with Rey for years, felt saddened by the loss of her fiancé.

“I won’t be angry if you do,” Ben says, jolting Rey back into the present. His lips tremble at the edges and he looks downcast, but true to his word there is no anger in his tone.

“I…”

Why is it so difficult to speak? Rey struggles for the right words. She loves Ben dearly, but it’s a different kind of love than she’d had for Poe. It’s a slower, more cautious love. It’s a love that understands the world-changing weight of loss.

“I would never ask you – never expect you to forget about him,” Ben continues. Despite being the one to ask the question in the first place, he now seems desperate to fill the silence, as though to let Rey speak would be to confirm that he would only ever be her second choice.

And in a way, he is. A part of Rey’s heart will always be inaccessible to him. She has within her an inactive love, consigned to memories and dreams and old shirts that still smelled faintly of Poe.

“I’m always going to love him,” she says. Still holding the frame, she walks over to Ben with a sad smile. “Just like I’m always going to love you.”

A flicker of unhappiness passes over Ben’s features. He smothers it as quickly as he can, but Rey knows his nature. He is a jealous man, even when reason dictates he shouldn’t be. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes. Ben squeezes back immediately. Rey lifts onto her tiptoes to press a kiss into his cheek. He doesn’t like her answer, but he accepts it, and that has to be enough for the both of them.


	10. Don't Leave Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Rey is a sex worker in this one. There's nothing explicit, but this is just a reminder to check the tags because they're updated every day. Thank you for your comments and kudos, they really are wonderful and so are you ❤

* * *

Day Ten:_ "Don't leave me."_

* * *

“Don’t leave me.”

Rey continues fastening her bra without looking over her shoulder. “Another hour will be $250.”

“I’ll pay it,” Ben says, already halfway out of the hotel bed. “I’ll pay for the whole night.”

“The whole night’s a thousand.”

Her math is wrong (and her voice is too toneless for his liking) but Ben doesn’t care. He’ll leave a tip to compensate how badly she’s underselling herself. He’s counting out hundred-dollar bills when he hears the soft thump of Rey settling back into the bed. He flicks the bills out quicker, already getting hard at the thought of her waiting for him, but then –

Then, she sighs.

It isn’t the half-moaned sigh she usually makes right before she comes. It isn’t the sigh of seeing he’s eaten the last of the room service fries again. It isn’t the sigh she’s started to make when they have to say goodbye. Ben knows those sighs. Ben has come to lo – _like_ those sighs.

This is a sad sigh. Rey is unhappy.

Ben panics.

_Fix it!_ his brain insists.

_HOW?_ every other part of his miserable being cries.

He starts by dropping his wallet and moving back over to the bed. The mattress dips as he kneels on it. Rey holds herself rigidly to stop from sliding into his lap, but she still won’t look at him. Ben tries to adjust his position – is he looming? He so often unintentionally looms, and that is _not_ the aura he wants to project right now – but ends up half-lying awkwardly next to her.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

It isn’t a request. He doesn’t communicate that way, not after so long as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Still, he tries to soften his voice to make it less of a demand.

Rey crosses her arms over her naked chest. Her face is carefully blank, but Ben can’t get the sound of her sigh out of his mind.

“I saw your picture online,” she says after a few moments. “You and that woman. Tallie? She’s pretty. Nice hair.”

Ben is bewildered. “How did you –?”

Rey sits up in a flash. It’s her turn to loom over him, only she’s definitely doing it on purpose. Her eyes burn.

“Fuck, Ben, do you think I sit in a dusty little cupboard somewhere until you call me? I have a life. More than that, I have an internet connection.”

“Did you Google me?” he asks, incredulous.

Rey looks defensive. “And what if I did?”

The idea should be invasive, or at the very least setting off some warning signs. His exact net worth isn’t available to the public, but even the approximated figures are enough the make the average gold-digger swoon.

Instead, Ben feels warm. Happy. Rey thinks about him when they’re not together.

“I wouldn’t care,” Ben tells her. “Although I would tell you that Tallie works for my mother, and only accompanied me to the gala because she wanted to network.”

Rey’s fury loses its edge, but doubt still lingers in her gaze.

“I am a terrible networker,” he says, like it wouldn’t be automatically assumed after spending five minutes with him. “But I know people who know people, so…”

Rey bites her lip. She’s clearly lost in thought without meaning to be sexy, but Ben has to calm himself down.

He distracts himself by thinking how bizarre this conversation should be. Rey is an independent contractor, hired to complete a particular task. She has proven adept at meeting his requirements in the past, and so he has hired her repeatedly. While Ben had once had a steady roster of independent contractors, he has now streamlined his attention to just one. Put that way, it’s unprofessional for Rey to pout over his meeting with other women.

But even Ben’s infamously blunt worldview can’t see things that way. Something had been different with Rey from their first night together. He hadn’t acted inappropriately – beyond what had been agreed to and paid for – but Rey had barely left the hotel room before he’d been planning their next night together.

Her smile lingers in his memory as he goes about his daily tasks. He finds himself thinking of things he might say to her, little inconsequential anecdotes about his day. He wishes she was waiting for him at his apartment when he gets home after a long day, and is somehow disappointed every single night to find his place as empty as he had left it.

But he’s not going to be the possessive, controlling asshole that demands Rey’s entire business. He has enough money to pay her to spend the rest of her life with him, should she wish it, but – call Ben old-fashioned – he’d rather not have a life partner whose presence is based on how much money he will give her.

His growing affection for Rey would only burden her. He hushed every thought about going out for dinner in her spare time, or hanging out and watching a movie. He gladly accepted the time he had paid for, and told himself it was enough.

But now Rey’s jealous. The thought is almost incomprehensible, but there’s no other explanation.

“Maybe next time I could bring you,” he suggests, trailing a finger up and down her arms and enjoying the way goosebumps prickle up. “Are you any good at networking?”

Rey shrugs lightly. “I’ve been told I have a talented tongue.”

Doesn’t Ben know it. At his arched brow, Rey’s features lose their brooding hint. Like a switch has been flipped, she grins and play-wrestles him onto his back. Ben submits, happy to be conquered


	11. This Isn't The Way I Thought It Would Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben is a recent child of divorce (are you still a child of divorce if you’re a grown man?) and the chapter discusses going to different houses for the holidays. If that’s something that upsets you, I’ll see you in the next update ❤ Thank you for your continued feedback and comments!

* * *

Day Eleven: _"This isn't the way I thought it would be."_

* * *

It’s the first Christmas after Han and Leia’s divorce, and Rey is so proud of how well Ben’s holding it together.

He’s controlling all the eye-twitches and blunt comments she knows it must be killing him not to release. Sure, he’s drinking wine at an alarming rate, but the alcohol always flows freely at Leia’s extravagant home. There doesn’t have to be anything worrying about that.

The three of them tear into the food with the gusto of people who desperately want to avoid conversation. When they do speak, the topics range from Rey’s work (“Fine, thanks”) and Ben’s recent start-up (“It’s going well”).

When the time comes to say goodbye, none of them acknowledge the reason they’re leaving so early. Han’s waiting for them at his rented apartment, probably with beer instead of food and tall tales instead of gifts.

Leia sees them out to the front porch. Ben has to stoop over to kiss his mother on the cheek, but there’s something of a hurt child hidden in his posture. He holds on a little longer than necessary.

“Wish your father a Merry Christmas for me,” Leia says, patting Ben’s cheek.

Ben jerks away and strides unsteadily down the drive. Rey and Leia exchange a grimace and then a hug.

“Take care of him.” Leia draws back from the embrace. She watches Ben’s progress with an exhausted smile that looks as though it’s one tic away from tears. “This hasn’t been easy on any of us.”

Rey nods. She loves Han and Leia, but news of their separation hadn’t really affected her. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have a family, let alone a fractured one. She’s googled how to help families going through a divorce, but aside from that she’s flying blind. All she can do is be there for Ben when the weight of his parents’ situation inevitably crashes down on him.

The moment Rey closes the car door behind her, Ben’s head slumps forward onto his chest and hangs there. She reaches over to squeeze his hand. His returning grip is instant and tight.

“This isn’t the way I thought it would be,” he confesses. “I had this idea that even though they weren’t together anymore, we could still do stuff as a family.”

“Maybe one day,” Rey says cautiously. She doesn’t want to offer Ben false hope, but she’s also seen Han and Leia’s dynamic played out many times. They have explosive fights but ultimately cycle back around to each other, like planets orbiting the sun. Their path is set. Of course, they’ve never gone so far as to get divorced before.

Rey has heard more than one friend gush about the epic romance of Han Solo and Leia Organa, who fate draws back together no matter how vicious their quarrels. She can see the excitement of it in theory, but in practice that kind of uncertainty terrifies her. She’d hate to know that if she got in a fight with Ben, she might not see him for weeks on end. She knows Ben hates it, too. It’s the main reason behind their Don’t Go To Bed Angry rule. They’ve upheld the rule well so far, even when Ben has been a petulant, sulking toddler about it.

`At least Rey has enough self-awareness to recognise that she isn’t a breeze to live with either.

“We can give it a few minutes before we go to Han’s, if you want,” she says, looking at the early evening glow of the streetlights. “Blame traffic.”

“What’s the point?” Ben’s voice cracks. “Early or late, the same thing is still going to be there waiting for me.”

“Waiting for us,” Rey corrects him.

It hurts her heart when Ben finally lets loose the sobs he’s been holding in all night. She clambers over to him and whispers her reassurance, over and over.


	12. I Would Rather Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canonverse! I'm a fan of this one, guys. I'd like to write a sequel or expand it further. Thank you for your comments and kudos, you brighten up my rainy part of the world! ❤

* * *

Day Twelve: _"I would rather die."_

* * *

Rain lashes down around them, sizzling as it meets the plasma beams of their lightsabers. Rey squints to try and improve her visibility, but Kylo is little more than a black shape as he lunges.

“We need to get out of this storm!” he shouts over the howling wind. “It’s only going to get worse!”

_Why don’t you take me to the Resistance hideout so we can all be nice and dry?_ Rey mentally fills in for him. She sneers. He’s trying to trick her by caring about her safety, and it won’t work.

Instead of answering, she swings her saber again. He defends himself but nothing more.

“Fight back!” Rey yells. “I know what you can do, why aren’t you trying?”

She thinks he looks sad, but that’s probably just the way the rain slants over his features. Another trick. Her words do seem to rouse something in him, though. He pushes all of his strength into a series of attacks, forcing Rey to defend herself. She doesn’t notice how many steps back she’s taken until the dull roar of the storm has faded. They’re in a small stone cave, carved into the mountain that had loomed over them before.

“I don’t want to fight,” Kylo says. He lowers his saber but doesn’t deactivate it. It spits light onto the ground. “We just had to get out of the rain. You never listen to me, even when I know what’s best.”

His frame almost blocks Rey’s view of the rocky wasteland beyond.

_Stupid,_ she chastises herself. _Always be mindful of your surroundings._

It’s too late now. Even inside the cave, the air feels electric from the growing storm. Their lightsabers cast an unearthly purple glow on the walls. Rey honestly doesn’t know what she should do next. She could fight her way out, but she’d never be able to find the Resistance base again in this weather. Besides, the only way Kylo will let her go is if he’s unconscious, and she won’t entertain the thought of leaving him so defenseless in the middle of what feels like an apocalypse.

Slowly, she lowers her saber. The shadows follow her movement down. Kylo nods once, still looking more cautious than relieved.

Despite the fraught situation, the mood is…awkward. Neither of them speak or even move much. They avoid each other’s gaze when possible.

“I’m not a big fan of caves,” Rey says after awhile.

“Yeah, me neither.” Kylo preoccupies himself by looking at the walls. When that exercise is over, seconds later, he sighs. “There are some things we should talk about.”

“Now?” Rey asks, alarmed. She had wanted to fight out the lingering pain and connection she still feels to Ben, a man she doesn’t think even exists anymore. Now the man who wears his face wants her to lay her heart out to him again? The thought is unbearable. “No.”

“Why not? Until the storm lets up, you can’t leave me again.”

Silence.

From his stricken expression, Rey guesses that he hadn’t meant to let the last two words slip.

“Is that all you think I do?” she asks softly. “Leave?”

He could deny it, but Kylo has always been one for bluntness. He doubles down with an equally determined expression.

“You have done every time we’ve met, one way or another.”

His tone is accusatory. If Rey didn’t know him better, she would only hear his anger. But he has cried for her, begged her, and she knows without asking that these are weaknesses he only shares when they’re together.

Rey looks away.

It doesn’t sit right with her. She isn’t the one who leaves, she’s the one who is left. That’s been an integral part of her for almost her whole life. She can’t reconcile the idea that someone can feel that same sense of helplessness and betrayal towards her.

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” she says, finding safety in a stern tone. “You chose your side. The only thing you want to hear from me are secrets, and I’m not telling you where the Resistance base is.”

Kylo’s shoulders stiffen. His eyes dart to hers. Even before he opens his mouth, Rey can tell something is wrong.

“The First Order already knows,” he says reluctantly. “They’ll launch an attack once the storm clears.”

Panic flares through Rey. It sets her on fire, urging her to move. She hardly hears Kylo add, “I left them to come and find you.” 

“I need to go!” She half-runs to the cave’s entrance and waits for Kylo to move aside. “I need to warn them – save them!”

He doesn’t look at her. “It’s too late.”

“It isn’t!” Rey’s panic rises the longer Kylo refuses to move. “I can find them if I leave now.”

“I won’t let you do that.”

The self-loathing in his voice is nothing, _nothing_ compared to how Rey feels about him right now. She steps back and raises her saber. Leaving Kylo unconscious in an apocalypse is suddenly _very_ appealing.

Kylo’s gloved hand whips out. Before Rey can think, her saber wrenches from her grip and flies to his waiting palm. He tucks the hilt into his belt with a resolute expression.

Rey gapes. She tries to call the saber back but it won’t heed her. For the first time since she came to be in possession of it, it hasn’t chosen her as its master.

“You think I can’t fight without it?” she asks, hardening her confusion into fury. “You won’t stop me from saving my friends.”

“Rey, stop.” Kylo grips both of her upper arms before she can fall into a fighting stance. Although only her arms are bound, the rest of her feels like stone. She’s been immobilized like this before, the very first time they met. It’s just as awful this time around. Kylo leans down until she can feel his breath on her cheeks. “The First Order’s targeting the whole planet.”

He doesn’t move away, allowing her to see the truth in his eyes.

Rey’s world screams as she tries to fight against his hold. She needs to run away and warn her friends, and whoever else she comes across. She can be the hero and save the day. She just needs to be set free.

Kylo refuses.

The longer Rey struggles against the Force, the more hopeless she feels. Why has it abandoned her when she needs it the most?

“Ben,” she says, half-sobbing, “please let me go, please, please Ben…”

“I have a shuttle nearby.” How can he sound so calm? He truly must be a monster. “I can get us to safety.”

“And leave my friends behind?” she spits. “I would rather die.”

Finally, Ben’s expression breaks. The deep well of sorrow he holds inside himself overflows into his features, causing them to crumple.

“I know you would,” he murmurs.

He releases her. Rey doesn’t have time to feel relieved before he waves a hand over her face. The world goes black.


	13. Why Can't We Just Talk About It?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sure most of you have been reading quixoticlux's angstober fic Angsty Autumn Advent Calendar (if not, [enjoy!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854391/chapters/49572482) ). Please go and shower her with love because she is glorious but has received some childish, entitled reviews.
> 
> ❤

* * *

Day Thirteen: _"Why can't we just talk about it?"_

* * *

Rey has seen some bad things in her life.

She’s seen children brawl in foster care. She’s seen people shooting up in alleyways. She’s even once come across a dead body hastily stuffed inside a dumpster.

But, somehow, she thinks the look of horrified betrayal on Finn’s face might be the worst.

She’d been so careless, making out with Ben in the living room of the apartment she and Finn shared. Their relationship was still a secret to be protected. They’d just been caught up in the moment, hadn’t heard the lock turning…

Rey scrambles off Ben’s lap and reaches out to Finn. He jerks away, his eyes wide and accusing.

“Him?” he asks, jabbing a finger in Ben’s direction. “Are you serious, Rey?”

Ben silently rises to his feet. He stands behind her, a beacon of comfort and warmth. She doesn’t have to look at him to know that he’s glowering at Finn.

“Just let me explain –” Rey begins, although she doesn’t know where her sentence is headed.

_Sure, Ben works for the most corrupt law firm in the city._

_Sure, when we declined his offer to sell Niima Bakery he made it his life’s mission to demolish the place._

_Sure, he hit us with so many zoning law violations that it made our heads spin._

_Sure, he’s the reason the demolition crew have scheduled a date for next week._

When it’s all laid out like that…yeah. It does sound bad. But, if Finn will let her, Rey would go on to add:

_But Ben regrets his choices._

_But Ben is trying to change._

_But Ben is helping us save our bakery now._

Plus, she’s pretty sure she’s in love with him.

“Rey, he ruined your life,” Finn says, trembling with anger. “_My_ life. We worked so hard to get the bakery up and running, and he just came and tore it away from us!”

“No, no, he’s helping us to save it,” Rey insists.

Finn throws a look of deep disgust at Ben. “Is that what he told you?”

“It’s the truth,” Ben says evenly.

Finn shakes his head. His disappointment cuts Rey worse than if he screamed at her. Everything is crashing down around her. She’d been planning on telling Finn about her and Ben after the bakery had been saved. Surely he wouldn’t have been angry at her if he had seen Ben’s true, good side? She could have her two favourite men in her life without any drama.

“I’m going to stay at Rose’s for the night,” Finn mutters, disappearing into his bedroom.

“Why can’t we just talk about it?” Rey calls after him, despairing.

Her throat is tight with panic and tears. She turns back to Ben, realizing for the first time just how much she’s come to rely on his support.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, taking her hand. “He just needs time to cool off.”

Finn doesn’t look at either of them as he storms out with an overnight bag tucked under his arm.

“I don’t want _him_ in my apartment ever again,” he says as he tugs the front door open.

“It’s Rey’s apartment, too,” Ben points out. Disapproval radiates from him.

Rey closes her eyes. He’s trying to defend her, but he’ll only make things worse.

“He’ll be gone by the morning,” she promises Finn. “Just come back and we can talk it through. Okay?”

Her only answer is a slammed door.


	14. One Last Time

* * *

Day Fourteen:_ "One last time."_

* * *

“One last time,” Ben begs, gripping her hand tightly between their coffee cups.

Rey laughs. “I love you.”

The words flood him like the most potent high known to man. The airport coffee shop fades out around him, leaving only Rey. The feeling wears off too quickly, and the come down is brutal. His other hand moves to solidify his grip.

“Again.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘last’, do you?” Rey teases.

“Not when it comes to you and me,” Ben says firmly. “Nothing about us should have an ending.”

Rey blushes and smiles her pleasure. Ben drinks her in. He’s wasted so many breaths on not telling her how beautiful she is, how much he adores her. And now she’s leaving him.

“It’ll only be until I can get my visa sorted,” she says, placing her free hand over his like some weird game of One Potato, Two Potato. “And then I’ll be on the first plane back. I’ll even fly Delta if I have to.”

Ben can’t doubt that kind of commitment. Still, it’s with pleading petulance that he asks, “Are you sure we can’t just get married?”

The couple at the next table give him a strange look. Rey raises an eyebrow at them until they look away. Her eyes are warmer when they meet back with his.

“Stop being weird and intense,” she scolds lightly. “You know that isn’t how I want us to be.”

For a second, all of Ben’s insecurities drown out his knowledge of Rey’s love. She doesn’t want to marry him. She doesn’t want him. She’s happy to be leaving, she _wants_ to leave, she can’t wait to get away from him, she –

“I love you,” Rey repeats. She leans in so that he can’t mistake her sincerity. “And I’m going to love you just as much from the other side of an ocean. I only want to marry you once, and I’m not wasting that day on thoughts of a visa expiration date.”

Ben’s sense of worth isn’t miraculously raised by the confession. He doesn’t suddenly love himself, or think that he deserves all the good things that have somehow happened to him. As his therapist is so fond of reminding him, the journey to self-esteem is one he has to take by himself. But, fuck, knowing that Rey loves him certainly helps.

“I love you, too,” he manages through a dry mouth.

Rey’s smile turns watery. She’d been so strong while he fell apart with thoughts of missing her, but now that the time to leave is drawing closer, Ben can see how much this separation hurts her.

“I need to get to security,” she says, her voice breaking on the last word. “The lines here always take forever.”

Ben doesn’t let go of her hand. He doesn’t let go until Rey is next in line to have her passport checked. Their goodbye kiss feels too sudden, despite all the time they’ve spent saying goodbye. He raises an arm to wave, but Rey has already been moved through a set of doors.

“I love you,” Ben murmurs, with no one around to hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to that one time I said goodbye to somebody at an airport and didn't stop crying until two hours into my flight. Reylo angst ain't got nothing on me. Thank you once again for you lovely kudos and comments! ❤


	15. I Don't Deserve This. I Don't Deserve You.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of surprise pregnancy, childbirth. Super short one tonight because the story I wanted to write on this prompt really really got away with me. I won’t have everything I want to write on it done by tonight, so I’ll upload the full version as a separate oneshot soon. For now, the context is that Rey has given birth despite not knowing she was pregnant (don’t those real-life stories freak you out?) and Ben is acting predictably. Thank you for your comments and kudos! ❤

* * *

Day Fifteen: _"I don't deserve this. I don't deserve you."_

* * *

She’s perfect.

She’s so small, bundled in her mother’s arms. She doesn’t look anything like the newborns on TV shows, who are clean and camera-ready and probably already a couple of months old. She had come out red and covered in gunk. Her first piercing cry had been an admonishment – “How dare you not know I was there?” – but she had soon settled into her new world.

As he looks down at his new family, Ben feels a love so overwhelming that he doesn’t know what to do with it. He feels the urge to protect her, and Rey, but he’s ruined everything he’s ever touched. Destroyed it, one way or another. He’ll fuck this up, too, he just knows it.

His panic catches in his throat, making a rasping cry for help. Rey looks at him, exhausted but happy. Her smile drops as she sees his expression.

“Ben?”

“I don’t deserve this.” He shakes his head. Tears slip down his cheeks. “I don’t deserve you. Either of you. I…”

He’s ruined Rey’s life by binding her to him in such an irrevocable way. He’s ruined this tiny baby’s life simply by being her father. She hasn’t been in the world for an hour and she’s already doomed. His regret is so potent he thinks he might throw up.

“Of course you deserve this,” Rey says, as though that settles everything. She shifts and then winces. “And Baby deserves a better childhood than either of us had.”

As always, Rey’s confidence in him is like a beacon guiding him home. She has an unshakeable faith in his better nature that he doesn’t have the strength to argue against. She’s fierce and strong, and she will make such a wonderful mother.

Ben drops slowly to his knees like a man in worship.

“I’ll make myself worthy,” he whispers, first to Rey and then to their daughter. “I’ll make myself worthy of you.”


	16. You Can't Fix It Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated!

* * *

Day Sixteen: _"You can't fix it now."_

* * *

“Sit down,” Ben says, pulling out a chair at the kitchen island. “I have a surprise for you.”

Rey smiles as he takes his own seat. She usually loves Ben’s surprises, even if the thought process behind them isn’t always clear. She’d once commented absently on liking bees, and for the next three months Ben bought her every bee-themed item he came across. It was sweet and well-intentioned, but far too much.

Her eyes zero in on a beige folder. There looks to be several reams of paper in it, judging by the thickness. Her heart skips. She and Ben already live together, but they’re only renting.

(Well, Ben rents and Rey pays what she can. The 1/99 split works in both their favors considering Rey’s part-time job and Ben’s desire to provide for her.)

Has Ben bought their apartment? Has he bought somewhere else? Maybe a house? He should have consulted her first if that’s the case, but the thought of finally putting down roots overrules Rey’s prickle of annoyance. They’d started tentatively discussing the idea of having kids, and of course those kids would need a stable environment like their parents never had.

Rey stops her train of thought in its tracks before she gets too giddy. It might not be anything exciting at all, just Ben dressing up the everyday with a ribbon.

She slides into the high seat with a smile and waits. Ben’s own excitement, such a rare thing, shines from his eyes. He pushes the folder towards her.

“I found your parents.”

It’s so far from what Rey expected him to say that for a moment she can’t make sense of it. She blinks. The smile falls from her face.

“What?”

“Your parents,” Ben repeats. Another nudge of the folder. “I tracked them down.”

Her parents. The ones who left her in a supermarket when she was five years old and were never seen again. Ben had cried the first time he heard the story of little Rey clutching onto the teddy bear her mother had sent her off to find. Now he’s sought them out. Rey doesn’t understand.

“Why would you… do that?”

Ben is slowly catching on that Rey’s numbed responses aren’t from gratitude. For the first time, he looks uncertain.

“I thought it would give you closure.” He looks away. “Plus, we talked about having children, and I thought it would be smart to have a history of any genetic issues.”

Is it smart? Is she overreacting? Fury covers Rey’s pain like a protective shroud. Better to be angry than heartbroken.

“So you went behind my back?” she asks, glaring at him.

Ben’s eyes widen. “It was a surprise.”

“No, Ben. A bee plushie is a surprise. This is…”

She doesn’t know what the fuck it is. An ambush? A betrayal? How many nights had she spent with Ben under the covers of their bed, sobbing about her broken past? How many times has she nuzzled into his neck and whispered that he was all she needed? She’d finally come to terms with her parents’ abandonment, only for Ben to turn around and decide to drag her past into her future. It feels like he’s spent all this time worshipping her edges while secretly planning how he’ll smooth them over. Rey wants to be loved for her spikes. She thought she _was_.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says after awhile. He slides the folder back and drops it into his lap, out of sight. “I didn’t know you’d react like this.”

Rey scoffs. Her reaction is what’s wrong with this scenario?

“This wasn’t your decision to make.” She shakes her head as hurt threatens to seep back in. “I can’t believe you would do this to me.”

“_You_ reunited _me_ with my family,” Ben says, his temper rising. He’s never been able to handle strong emotions without getting angry. “And I thanked you for it.”

“Han and Leia were shitty parents at times, but they always came back!” Rey is on her feet before she knows it. Her voice bounces off the dark metal cabinets. “They never stopped fighting for you, even after you joined the First Order! My parents didn’t even care enough to leave me at a police station!”

The folder falls as Ben stands. Papers hit the floor and fan out. Rey refuses to look down. Her bloodline is scattered across the kitchen floor like a taunt. Ben kicks out his frustration at the nearest pages. Whether he knows he’s fucked up, or he’s just feeding back her anger, Rey doesn’t know. She can’t stand being in the same vicinity as him.

“What should I do with these?” Ben asks, nodding downwards.

Rey’s mouth is dry. “Burn them.”

She doesn’t need to know her parents’ names. She doesn’t need to know where they work, or what TV shows they like, or whatever else is on those papers. It’s harder to feel rejected if she can’t put a face or a name to those rejecting her.

She feels like she’ll never be enough.

“I’m going to go,” she says, training her eyes on a spot over Ben’s shoulder. She tries to keep her voice even, despite the creeping realization that, somehow, she’s managed to lose another family. “I’ll be back in the morning to pack some things.”

Ben moves over to her in alarm. His feet scuff the papers.

“Rey, come on…”

She steps back. Away from him, away from the choice he’s made for her.

“No. It’s done.” She’d thought he was buying them a home. She’d had a list of baby names she was going to bring up with him. “You can’t fix it now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive Ben's OOCness here, it was in service of the ~ a n g s t ~ 
> 
> Thank you for your comments and kudos, hope you enjoyed! ❤


	17. I Wish I'd Never Met You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with drug abuse and withdrawal. Ben’s (obviously ill-advised) withdrawal strategy is shamefully stolen from season one of Jessica Jones. Thank you for your comments and kudos! ❤

* * *

Day Seventeen: _"I wish I'd never met you."_

* * *

“Just a little bit, Rey, just a little bit, just enough to get me through the worst of it, please –”

Rey sits on the other side of the locked bathroom door and closes her eyes. They’re only two days into Ben’s cold turkey attempt, and already her resolve is cracking. He sounds so pained. It goes against every instinct she has to let him suffer without trying to soothe him.

She steels herself. Ben is in pain because he’s trying to change. Transformation is destruction of the old. She’d had images of rehab and doctors and clean, specialized places in mind, but the cracked tiles of her bathroom floor have ended up being the scene of Ben’s recovery. He had been adamant about quitting the second he realized he had been too fucked up to remember Rey’s birthday.

“I had all these plans,” he’d babbled, looking lost. “I know you didn’t get to celebrate when you were a kid, so I wanted to make it special. Your first birthday as my girlfriend and I was fucking out of it.”

His anguish turned to resolve. He crashed his lips against hers and then strode into her bedroom. She’d heard him rooting around in her drawers. He returned with a pair of handcuffs dangling from his fingers. Bemused, Rey followed his determined strides into the bathroom.

“Ben, what are you doing?” she’d asked as he sank to the floor.

The handcuffs snapped closed. One around his wrist, the other around her radiator’s pipe.

He awkwardly threw the key to her. How he could look so serious in such a bizarre position was beyond Rey. The fact that he was using their extra-strength handcuffs they’d both enjoyed many times before only added to the surreal scene.

“Lock the door,” he’d instructed. “Don’t let me out until I’m clean.”

“Ben.” Rey stared down at the key incredulously. “This is ridiculous. Let’s get you to a doctor or something.”

“No. I’m doing this.”

And Rey, for God knows what reason, had complied. She’d been in every few hours with some food he hadn’t been able to keep down. Vomit covered the tiles. She’d cleaned up as best she could, but once Ben started to beg, she’d had to leave.

Her own bathroom breaks to the twenty-four hour coffee shop across the street are welcome reprieves. Her apartment feels thick with the stench of sickness.

“Tell me what you were going to do for my birthday,” Rey says through the door, mainly to cover up the sound of Ben’s whimpers. “In detail. Tell me what flavor cake you were going to buy.”

“You don’t deserve any cake,” Ben snaps.

Rey braces herself for his cruelty. The Google search of “heroin withdrawal” had been a damning list of symptoms. But she loves Ben too much to let him suffer through this alone, and so she reminds herself that the addiction has control now. The hatred in his voice belongs to it, not to her boyfriend.

“If I don’t deserve cake then I’ll settle for waffles.”

“I wish I’d never met you!” he bellows. “You’re the reason this is happening! If it wasn’t for you, I’d be _happy_ right now!”

Rey knows he means ‘high’ instead of ‘happy’ – knows that he confused the two for a long, long time – but it still stings.

“Next year, you can get me a lemon cake,” she says, raising her voice to drown out the rattling metal inside. Planning out her next birthday is how she used to comfort herself as a child when another year passed unnoticed. “If you can get the time off work, maybe we can go on a weekend break.”

Inside the bathroom, Ben throws up again.


	18. I Trusted You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched the first episode of Succession and this happened. I'm weirdly into this idea. Forewarning, Ben is a dick here. The business practices are the result of a ten-minute googling session, so please just switch off the logical part of your brain and go with the inaccuracies. If I knew how shares worked, I ... would probably still be writing Reylo fanfiction, but I'd be a lot richer while doing it.  
Thanks for your comments, kudos and bookmarks! Hope you enjoy ❤

* * *

Day Eighteen: _"I trusted you."_

* * *

Rey doesn’t sleep the night before she is due to meet Ben Solo again.

The last time she saw him in person had been to break both their hearts. His morals had become looser, shifting things since he joined the First Order. Rey had tried to ignore it, but she’d watched the man she loved slip further away until she couldn’t bear to watch. She left their shared apartment while he cried and begged her to come back.

She heard snippets about him during the next five years. He was named in finance articles and society pages. He was photographed looking stern and stiffly posed. He was never photographed with another woman, and although much was made of his eligibility, there were no whispers of a partner. Rey hated herself for checking to see if he had a girlfriend, and hated herself more for her relief that he was still single.

She’d seen Han and Leia every few months. They were as grieved as she was by their son’s descent into Snoke’s murky company. They had a thousand other things to talk about – they were early investors in Rey’s start-up company, and they were still on the board of directors now that the business had thrived beyond Rey’s wildest dreams – but every so often, talk would turn to Ben.

“I don’t recognize him anymore,” Leia said once, so softly that Rey wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “It’s like Snoke burned away all the goodness in him.”

To distract herself from her still-broken heart, Rey had focused on building her company even further. She had already cornered the market with Rationals, the lunchbox-sized dried food which only required added water to expand into a healthy and delicious meal. She had created them with very low-income families and homeless people in mind, and it made her heart swell to think she was making a difference to those who were in the same situation she had once been.

She threw herself into her work with such single-mindedness that by the time the car accident occurred, she hadn’t seen Han or Leia in eight months.

She had gone to the funeral.

Ben hadn’t.

Now, six weeks later, he’s arranged a meeting with her. He wouldn’t divulge his reasoning, only that he was attending in an official capacity with business to discuss.

Rey downs too much coffee as she sits in the meeting and waits for Ben to arrive. Usually the soaring sights of Manhattan boost her spirits. She was born in the gutter and now she lives among the clouds. Today, she’s too nervous to be inspired. Whatever Ben wants can’t be good. She’s going to pretend she hasn’t checked her hair and makeup in her compact mirror six times so far. She doesn’t have anything to prove to the man she left behind.

Ben arrives precisely on time. It must just be Rey’s anxiety, but it seems as though a hush falls over the floor. He strides through the main corridor, leading a small team of identically severe-looking men. Each is as well-dressed and groomed as the next, and each has an arrogance about him that only entrenched wealth can obtain. Rey dismisses the other men with a glance. She has dealt with enough entitled sons and grandsons to know how to handle them.

Ben, though…

Ben has a presence that draws people’s gazes and just as quickly makes them look away. Although he too is a son _and_ grandson of true power, he’s the rare breed who has managed to forge his own strength separate from his family name. He’s channelled his stubbornness into cold certainty. He will take whatever he wants, cost be damned.

Rey really wishes she hadn’t read that latest article about him before this meeting. The Wolf, they’d called him. If she sees him as a wolf, he’ll tear her to shreds.

She stands as Ben enters the meeting room. Her legs shake once beneath her. He seems taller, broader. She’d always seen his physicality as protective (and incredibly alluring). Now he just seems dangerous.

“No pleasantries,” he says as she moves around the table. His first words to her in five years are fitting, at least. “This won’t take long.”

With a single nod, Rey returns to her chair but does not sit down.

“May I be introduced to the men who have barged into my meeting room?” she asks, meeting Ben’s eyes with an icy look.

He holds her captive in his gaze. She can see from the curated blankness in his expression that he’s built barriers in the last few years. It’s for the best; he was always too easy to read.

“My team of lawyers,” he says shortly.

While Rey tries to muddle over why he has so many lawyers with him, he gestures for the other men to sit. Only when he’s seated, opposite Rey, does she too sit down.

There’s a moment’s silence in which Rey reflects on all the appropriate ways she can begin this meeting. Instead, in a soft voice, she says, “I’m sorry about your parents.”

Ben’s eye twitches but otherwise he doesn’t react. He probably doesn’t want to seem like he has any human emotions in front of the team of sharks.

“That leads us neatly into why I’m here,” he says, brushing aside their shared grief. “Upon my parents’ deaths, I inherited many things. Their wide stock portfolio among them.”

Rey’s stomach drops.

“They invested 35% in Rationals because they believed in you,” Ben continues. “As you may recall, I invested 20%.”

She could interpret that as a dig. _I didn’t believe in you so I invested less_. Still, she doesn’t think so. He had been by her side during the early days, cheering her on at every stumbling block and celebrating with her when she finally scrambled over the edge. Even as he became ensnared in the First Order, his support of her had never flagged.

The haze of memories fades and his implications hang, razor-sharp, in the air. Rey’s mouth opens but she can’t force any words out. Ben’s shares and his parents’ shares combined make him the majority shareholder.

Ben watches understanding dawn on her. Though he doesn’t smile, there is a cruel satisfaction in the gleam of his eyes.

“I know your formal education is lacking, Miss. Jackson, but try to keep up.” He lets the insult rip fully into Rey’s insecurities before delivering another blow. “I now own 55% of your company.”

Beneath the table, Rey’s fingers press into her thighs. Ben is waiting for her reaction, but she refuses to give him one. She’s watching everything she’s worked so hard for be torn away by a man who used to love her.

When Ben realizes he won’t get the response he wants, he digs deeper.

“My first act will be to replace your board of directors. You, of course, will remain.”

Rey shakes her head once. He’ll stack the board with his yes-men and take her company in any way he pleases. Her token resistance will do nothing but amuse him. Ben’s eyes bore into hers, waiting to pounce on any sign of weakness.

“We’ll redistribute Rationals to the military,” he continues as the men beside him nod. “It’s a far more lucrative business.”

Rey’s fingers tighten against her pants. “No.”

Rationals help people in need. She has poured light into the world by helping its most needy, and that cannot be taken away and fed into the war machine.

“And then…” Ben pauses for maximum effect. “I’m buying you out.”

“_No_.”

Rey snarls the word, losing the last of her composure. Ben gains nothing from owning her company. He already has more money and power than he can go through in a lifetime. Rationals does well, but it’s nothing compared to the dealings he is involved in. He’s being cruel for the sake of it.

Ben leans back in his chair, finally satisfied.

“You misunderstand.” His flat tone reveals none of the pleasure hidden away in the corner of his mouth. “This isn’t a negotiation. As majority shareholder, I am within my rights.”

“I’ll block you,” Rey promises. “Every step of the way.”

Ben sighs. “You can take it to court, of course, but even if you manage to find a judge I haven’t played golf with, they’ll see just how unusually generous my offer is. You’ll be able to house every homeless person in New York with what I intend to pay you.” He pauses, his plush lips working over themselves. “Well, not _in_ New York. Even my generosity can’t get the better of New York real estate.”

The men around him chuckle. Rey stares at him, revolted. Her mind is slowly starting to scramble to its usual problem-solving state, but there’s still a part of her that’s bewildered that Ben could do this to her. They had planned a future together, once.

Ben gets to his feet. The lawyers follow. When he gestures for them to wait outside, they file out without saying goodbye. Rey’s eyes drop to the table before her. Even though she knows Ben is still standing there, doesn’t have the strength to stand. Let him throw out one last taunt and then be on his merry fucking way. She needs a minute to regroup, and then she’ll fire back.

She just needs a minute.

Ben doesn’t grant her that.

“It didn’t have to be this way, Rey,” he says, his voice softer than anything she’s yet heard from him today. He sounds like his old self.

Rey glares up at him through a sheen of tears. He’s poisoned the man he was, and no amount of gentle tones can change that.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, her voice cracking with hatred. “I trusted you.” And then, because that feels too vulnerable, she quickly covers with: “I trusted you with those shares.”

Ben takes a few moments to consider, as though he had never had to think of a reason before. When he finds his answer, he seems perplexed by it. His eyebrows draw together and those once-expressive eyes of his shine again.

“Because I loved you.”

Finally, Rey stands.

“Get out,” she snaps.

Ben nods once. He stands straighter, and just like that the monster is at the forefront again. He’s put that imperious distance between them. Rey wants nothing more than to cross it and punch him in the face.

“There’ll be a dinner to celebrate my acquisition,” he says. “You’ll attend.”

“Fuck you.”

Again, Ben looks pleased rather than offended.

“I hold your legacy in the palm of my hand,” he taunts. “It’s nothing for me to crush it.”

A thousand curses flash through her mind, but Rey lets him have the last word. Giving him this one battle to win means nothing when she’ll find a way to eventually win the war. Ben gives her one last look before turning to leave. The ghost of a smile imprints onto his lips.

“See you soon, Rey.”


	19. Don't Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That last chapter made an impact! Thank you for your kind words, I definitely want to expand and continue that storyline. Maybe it’ll be a pre-TRoS project, or a NaNoWriMo thing.  
This chapter deals with the loss of a parent. I did an alternate take on Ben’s grief here. It's strange that grief is something so widely felt yet in so many different ways. Look after yourselves ❤

* * *

Day Nineteen: _"Don't cry."_

* * *

Rey sobs into Ben’s chest. He holds her close with one hand and gives her slow, mechanical pats on the head with the other. He doesn’t know why. She isn’t a dog. He’d be annoyed if someone tried to comfort him in that way. But it seems like all he can do when his own tears won’t come.

“Shh,” he says, going for another useless gesture. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.”

Rey pulls back and looks up at him in disbelief. Ben hates seeing her in pain, obviously, but he has to appreciate how pretty her eyelashes look with tears sticking to them like tiny slicks of light.

“Don’t cry?” she repeats, sniffling. “Ben, why aren’t _you_ crying?”

He doesn’t know. His father is dead. He should feel something. Instead, his thoughts are for Rey. His mother. Chewie. They’ll have to find somewhere big enough to accommodate all of Han’s friends and enemies – of which there had been many – for the wake. They might have to hire security, too. Everyone who attends will either owe money or have money owed to them. Couple that with the drinks that are sure to be flowing, and it’ll be carnage.

Rey’s still waiting for an answer. She’s looking at him like there’s something wrong with him. Maybe there is.

“I need to plan out the funeral,” he mumbles.

In a daze, he turns around to find his phone. After hearing about Han’s crash, he’d wordlessly passed the call to Rey. She had listened for a moment, and then dropped the phone with a cry. Ben shouldn’t have let her find out that way. He should have been the one to tell her. It had been selfish of him. Stupid.

“Don’t worry about the funeral right now,” Rey says, tugging his arms until he turns back around to face her. Her features, puffy and red, screw together in confusion. “You need to process this. Just…cry, or scream, or break something.”

“I don’t know how. To process it,” he adds quickly, because if there are three things he’s usually really fucking great at, it’s crying and screaming and breaking things. “I don’t know how to feel.”

Rey folds herself back into his chest.

“Whatever you’re feeling is right,” she murmurs.

Ben holds her and doesn’t reply. No matter what she says, he knows this sense of matter-of-factness isn’t right. The news of his father dying shouldn’t be met with simple acknowledgement. Even with their contentious history, he should be feeling _something_. His world has changed. He doesn’t have a dad anymore.

But he has spent the last ten years not having a dad. It’s only been in the last few months, since meeting Rey, that he has slowly started to reconcile with his parents. Had started to reconcile. Things like that must be used in the past tense now.

He walks Rey over to the couch and sits them both down. Straight away, Rey climbs into his lap and nestles into his chest.

“Whatever you’re feeling is right,” she whispers again.

Ben sort of feels like he wants to have sex.

He doesn’t voice that. Even his body, which has reacted to vile and unexpected things in the past, seems to get the memo that a boner is off-limits right now. Nothing about him is working the way it should today.

He sits in silence on the couch until the sky turns dark, and waits for grief to hit him.


	20. I Promised I Would Always Be On Your Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments and kudos! ❤ I am so excited about the trailer tomorrow (and so nervous about getting midnight showing tickets!) that I'm hardly about to think about anything else.

* * *

Day Twenty: _"I promised I would always be on your side."_

* * *

“…because I believe in a world free from social equality – inequality! Fuck!”

Rey is ten minutes away from giving the most important speech of her career so far, and she’s accidentally advocated for social inequality four times in rehearsal. She’d had to ask for a moment alone after Rose and Finn exchanged a concerned glance. Her voice echoes slightly in the empty backstage dressing room.

She closes her eyes and breathes. She’s got this. She can recite this speech in her sleep.

“…because I believe in a world free from social inequality, free from injustice, and above all free from the inhumane treatment of –”

“– our fellow man.”

“– our fellow man.”

The deep voice harmonising with hers makes Rey spin around. Ben stands in the doorway, holding a cactus in his large hands. There’s a hint of nerves in his smile as he walks further into the room, nudging the door closed behind him.

“Hi, Rey.”

“Ben.” She’s too surprised to do anything other than acknowledge him. She gathers her wits about her and tries for a smile. “How did you…?”

“Know the words?” Ben’s expression is soft. “I was there when you wrote the speech, remember?”

“Actually, I was going to ask how you got past security.”

“Oh.”

Rey wants to wince at the disappointment in his voice. She isn’t tactful at the best of times, and certainly not with all these nerves swirling around in her stomach. Ben shrugs. It’s an oddly vulnerable gesture for one so usually self-assured.

“Uh, I guess they think we’re still together.”

Rey closes her eyes, briefly annoyed at herself.

“Right,” she mutters. She shoots Ben an apologetic look. “With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t updated the team…”

“Well, I don’t mind –”

“…but I’ll notify them once the – oh.”

Their opinions overlap like always. Had it always felt this awkward? They must have been on the same page once, right? Three years of loving someone had to be based on at least some common ground.

Seeming at a loss of what else to do, Ben holds out his gift. Rey sets aside her notes and takes the cactus with a small smile of thanks.

_Give me something that will last_, she’d told him once, waving away his offers of flowers. He’d taken the directive to heart. Rey had accumulated quite the mass of tiny succulents during their time together.

“It’s a weird good luck gift, I know,” he says, running a hand through his hair self-consciously.

Rey fights the urge to pat the wayward strands back into place.

“It’s perfect,” she assures him. “Tough and prickly, just like me.”

She’s aiming to get a laugh, but Ben shakes his head with his usual serious expression.

“You know there’s more to you than that.”

She can’t handle the implications of (_him looking at her like that, the gentleness in his voice, him being here at all_) any of it right now. Rey busies herself with setting the cactus down at a perfect angle on the desk.

“Now I just need to convince the voters of that,” she says lightly, shifting the pot this way and that. When there’s nothing left to distract herself with, she sighs and turns around. “Why are you here, Ben?”

Ben takes a step closer, and then another. When Rey doesn’t object, he walks until he’s close enough to tuck her hair behind her ear. Rey half-hopes he will; she misses that simple gesture of affection. All he does is look down at her with a sad smile.

“I promised I would always be on your side. Whether that means standing beside you or behind the scenes, I don’t care.”

The flicker in his gaze tells Rey otherwise. He’s always been so vocal about supporting her, but their vision of the future had always been the two of them standing side-by-side. Rey still wants that future, but for now it’s on a high shelf far above their heads. She can’t share her bed with a man who is climbing into other beds with monsters. If her voting base knew of Ben’s association with James Snoke, who champions everything she is fighting against, they would never trust her again.

Even thinking that man’s name sends a seething anger through Rey.

“Have you seen Snoke lately?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

Ben stiffens. They’ve had this argument too many times before for him to be unaware of the minefield.

“I have,” he says slowly.

Rey’s hope fades. She wants to be gentle with Ben – she still loves him, and he still loves her – but the impossibility of the situation gives her words a sharp edge.

“Then you’re not on my side.”

An ugly snarl hitches Ben’s lips. His temper, always quick to spike, seems closer to the surface than ever these days. Rey wonders if he’d have hurled the cactus against the wall if he’d still been holding it.

He controls himself a moment later, but it’s too late. Rey has been reminded of why she left him, and she won’t let nebulous thoughts of a future with him get in the way of her very real present.

“I have to practice my speech, Ben,” she says, picking her notes back up in a clear dismissal.

Ben takes it with more grace than she would have expected. He nods once. Thin traces of anger still line his brow.

“You’ll be great,” he says.

Rey ignores his bitterness.


	21. Who Are You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost trailer time!!!!  
Thank you for your lovely comments and kudos, they really are everything ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-One: _"Who are you?"_

* * *

_She’s pretty_, Kylo thinks as he watches the young woman open the shutters of the flower shop.

He sits in his car across the street and takes a swig from his flask. The whiskey burns his throat. It’s barely six a.m.; he should probably add some coffee in there. He can do one socially acceptable thing today.

He gives the woman – _Rey Jackson_, Snoke had called her – a few minutes to settle in. She works the morning shift alone, he knows from his surveillance. Delivery people would go in and out, carting bouquets and other assortments, but she holds down the register by herself. Kylo appreciates that. It makes it easier for him to convey Snoke’s message.

He climbs out of his car and strides across the street. It’s starting to rain when he ducks inside the small shop. A light bell on the door announces his arrival. In anticipation of Rey’s greeting, he takes a cigarette from his pack and lights it. He stands closer to the nearest display than necessary, just to make sure she won’t miss his meaning.

Kylo has threatened far worse things than flower displays, but there’s something about the budding vines hanging from overhead trellises that makes him almost regret what he might have to do. Everything here is so vibrant and full of life. He has no business dragging his darkness into a shop like this.

Rey steps out of the back room with a customer-ready smile lighting up her face. Kylo flatters himself to think that interest sparks in her gaze, before those little sparks turn to horror.

“You can’t smoke in here!” she says, aghast.

Kylo brings the cigarette to his lips in response. She’s shorter than he is – most people are – but she doesn’t seem intimidated. With a scowl, she reaches up and plucks the cigarette from his lips. Kylo stares, lips still pursed, as Rey stamps out the embers on the stone flag floor. He rearranges his features into something less impressed as she finishes extinguishing the threat.

“That was careless of me,” he agrees. “Accidents can happen, after all.”

Rey narrows her eyes. “Who are you?”

“Snoke’s man.”

The usual reaction to those words involves faces draining of colour, muttered swear words, or blind panic. Rey is impassive.

“Am I supposed to know who Snoke is?” she asks.

Annoyance tugs at Kylo’s temper. Snoke’s name should speak for itself. It’s harder to convince someone to pay for protection if they don’t know who they need protecting from.

“Your landlord should have mentioned, yeah.” Kylo will be paying another visit this morning, it seems. “Snoke owns this block.”

Rey scoffs. “Then I’m paying rent to the wrong person.”

“Don’t think of it as rent.” He steps forward into Rey’s personal space. This is normally one of his more effective intimidation tactics. He ignores how his stomach tightens with the way Rey tilts her chin up to meet his gaze, unflinching. “Think of it as a thank you.”

“What am I thanking him for?”

There’s no curiosity in her tone. She knows why he’s here, even if she’s never heard of Snoke before. This mustn’t be the first time she’s ran afoul of gangs. Kylo relishes her expression for a moment. She’s trying to hide her outrage, probably trying not to provoke him, but he can see the fire in her eyes.

“He keeps everyone safe.” _From himself_. Kylo looks around, affecting dismissiveness. “Come on, a flower shop in a neighborhood like this? Do you know how many shitty people live around here?”

“Shitty people need flowers, too. Speaking of, were you looking to order anything?”

Kylo grins. He likes her. But he’s here to do a job, and he hasn’t earned his reputation by being swayed by a pair of pretty eyes.

“It’s 500 a month,” he says, letting his amusement fade.

For the first time, Rey looks unsettled. “That’s too much.”

“Figure it out.” Kylo’s eyes are drawn to the worried pout she pushes her lips into. “Collection’s usually on the first of the month, but seeing as you weren’t informed, I’ll give you three more days.” He meets her gaze again. “Special favor from me to you.”

He isn’t imagining the light blush that stains Rey’s cheeks, even if she refuses to react. In a calm voice, she says, “If you aren’t going to buy anything, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

She holds herself together better than most on this block, Kylo will give her that. With a slow nod, he steps back. The retreat means nothing; they both know who holds the power here.

“Three days,” he reminds her.

The bell jingles again as he leaves. If Rey doesn’t pay in time, the first thing he’ll do is rip the merry little thing off the door. He stands in the pouring rain for a moment before crossing the street back to his car.


	22. Why Do You Care?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of Chapter Twelve: I Would Rather Die, in which canonverse Kylo warns Rey that the First Order has targeted the planet they’re on. He stuns her with the Force because she refuses to go along with his rescue. This chapter picks up with them in Kylo’s ship, having escaped the attack.  
I’m currently half-asleep because I was up until 4am this morning watching the trailer and then freaking out about the trailer (“BUT I DO” omfg) so sorry if this is barely coherent. Thanks for your comments and kudos! ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Two: _"Why do you care?"_

* * *

The moment he’s finished putting in the final set of coordinates, Kylo twists around in his seat to check on Rey. She’s still fast asleep – _knocked out_, he corrects himself – on the small cot in the back of the stolen ship. There isn’t much room in the vessel, but at she’s as comfortable as he could make her.

Except – well, he’s restrained her, of course. If she comes to and panics, her power could lash out and attach itself to the controls. Or, worse, to the ship itself. She could rend the metal apart and leave them both gasping for air. Kylo isn’t sure he deserves a good death, but leaving the mortal coil by floating around like space trash is too much of an affront to his dignity.

They’ve long since left the danger zone. Kylo jumped them to hyperspace the moment he was able to. He hasn’t regretted the choice to leave the Resistance to die, and he genuinely doesn’t think he will. If Leia Organa was still with the Resistance, he might have tried to save them. But he’d felt her pass only days ago, and with her death had faded his last shred of attention towards that band of rebels.

Rey is the only thing he cares about now. He cares enough to let her hate him. She’s starting to come round, he can feel it, and already tendrils of outrage are spiralling from her. Kylo isn’t a coward. He’ll take whatever she throws at him (hopefully not literally) and he’ll be content in the knowledge that at least she’s safe, and they’re together.

Rey groans as she wakes. Her breathing spikes and she jolts upright. She stares at her restraints as they rattle, too loud in the small space.

“Let me go,” she demands, sitting up as best she can with her wrists bound and her feet secured to the rail at the bottom of the cot. “We have to go back.”

“No.”

Rey snarls in frustration and yanks against the restraints. Kylo is unmoved. She can rage all she wants, but she isn’t getting free until he decides it. He sees the exact moment that realization dawns on her. Her gaze snaps up, burning in accusation.

“Why can’t I – what did you do?”

“Force suppressants,” Kylo says, nodding towards her restraints.

He’d made sure to grab them, along with some other items, before he’d left his position as Supreme Leader for good. As long as Rey doesn’t go poking around the smugglers’ hiding place beneath her feet, he should be able to keep the more dangerous objects from her.

Rey looks disgusted as she examines her restraints. “You just happened to have these with you?”

There’s really no other way to answer that than with the truth. Kylo nods once.

“I knew there was a chance you wouldn’t come willingly,” he says.

Rey closes her eyes. She looks like she might throw up, before color returns to her in an angry shade of red. Even her eyes seem to spark when she opens them again.

“I hate you.”

Kylo flinches. He deserves that. He deserves far, far worse that than that. He’d counted on it, after taking her choice away from her.

It still hurts.

She is the best thing that could have happened to him. He refuses to just let her die in some senseless attack, like she doesn’t make the galaxy better by just existing in it.

But he can’t say any of that. He accepts her hatred, but that doesn’t mean he welcomes her rejection. All he can do is stay silent and absorb the anger and despair radiating from her. She can’t access the Force in her restraints, but it still swirls around her insistently. She has more natural sway over it than anyone Kylo has ever known. Except maybe for himself.

He clenches and unclenches his fist. All these things they have in common, and she still refuses to look at him for more than a handful of seconds at a time.

“I was wrong,” she mutters. She gives another yank on the restraints like she’s punctuating her thoughts. “Whatever light I saw in you was just a trick.”

Kylo almost laughs at that. How much simpler his life would be if these constant nagging urges were just a trick. If he could commit to the dark side, maybe he would finally be happy.

Rey stills. Her breath leaves her in one long shudder and her shoulders slump. Alarmed, Kylo moves forward to check on her. Her eyes meet his, freezing him in his tracks.

“You left all those people to die,” she whispers.

The look she gives him is going to haunt him, he can tell. Her disappointment will burn into his mind, along with all the other searing looks he’s been given before: his father’s shock, his mother’s unease, and Luke’s twisted, furious features.

“You’re worth more than all of them combined,” he says, half because he’s hoping to lure her back into anger and half because it’s true. “And you’re better than being caught up in the First Order’s grudges.”

Rey stares at him through narrowed eyes like she’s trying to divine his secrets. It’s foolish; he’d tell her almost anything, if she only asked. As though she heard him and was calling his bluff, Rey shifts on her cot and continues to inspect him.

“Why do you care?” she asks, her voice thick with suspicion.

Kylo doesn’t answer.

He can deal with her hatred, he reminds himself, but not her rejection.


	23. You Haven't Changed At All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a doozy here, loves. No Reylo, only kid!Ben. Tagged for parents fighting and a small reference to self-harm. Steer clear if you need to, be happy and well ❤ Thank you for your comments and kudos, reading them is the highlight of my day.

* * *

Day Twenty-Three:_ "You haven't changed at all."_

* * *

The lights of Coruscant shine through Ben’s bedroom window, falling over the text he diligently copies onto a piece of paper. He finishes the latest paragraph with a satisfied nod before starting on the next one. His penmanship is getting better. It’s a skill most people scoff at, especially in the circles his mother runs in. He understands their disdain, sort of. Quills and paper seem archaic when people have access to the latest tech. Every attempt he makes to explain why he enjoys writing so much is met with the same tight smiles. He sees that expression a lot on people.

A door slams in the apartment, making Ben jump. The pen jerks with his movement, slicing a jagged line through the paper. He snarls in frustration at his spoiled efforts. His hand shoots out, intent on destruction, but he stops himself in time. He’s running low on paper and can’t stand the thought of wasting what little he has. Instead of crumpling the whole page in his fist like he wants to, he finds some scissors and carefully cuts around the mistake. He focuses hard enough that he almost blocks out the steady rise of his parents’ voices.

“All these promises, all this _I’ll stop once the kid is here_, and for what? You haven’t changed at all.”

“Me? You’re the one running off to meetings every two days, Your Highness.”

“At least I take Ben with me! When’s the last time you spent more than five minutes with him?”

Ben concentrates harder. He’s dragged into his parents’ arguments every single time, and he doesn’t know why. His room is clean. His tutors praise his hard work. He doesn’t ask for things, even though all he seems to do is want. He’s a good kid.

“Oh, give me a break! You can’t count dragging him along to the Senate as spending quality time with him!”

“At least he learns more than how to cheat at cards when he’s with me –”

“That’s a valuable skill!”

“– or how to get into bar fights!”

“Maybe he should learn that! Kid needs to toughen up.”

Ben starts writing again, but his fingers shake around the quill. He presses the nib into the page until the ink bleeds into thick lines. His breathing harshens. The letters were supposed to be light and thin. He’s ruined it.

He presses down harder until the nib snaps. With a shout, he tears the paper until there are only shreds left. He kicks the inkwell over and watches the blackness spread into a stain. The Force vibrates around him, plucking at his emotions like a fly caught in a spider’s web. Beneath it all croons a darkness he recognizes like it’s a part of himself. The darkness wants him to give himself over to his anger and pain. Things will be better once he does. He will not _want_ quite so much.

Ben smacks himself on the head once, twice, three times, as though he can beat the urge out. How many times has Uncle Luke cautioned him about the Dark Side? But still he’s drawn to the thought of how it might feel to cocoon himself in his fury. It takes so much out of him to keep his rage at bay.

He runs to his bed and hides beneath the covers, like the monsters are outside and not in his own head.

Down the hall, his parents scream at each other.


	24. Let Me Give You A Ride Home, Please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one really got away from me. Rey and Ben are the same age here, around 17. Thank you for your comments and kudos ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Four: _"Let me give you a ride home, please?"_

* * *

It’s an hour’s walk to the field, but Rey doesn’t care. She’s almost there. The light from the bonfire guides her way, visible for miles. Even the steadily dropping temperature doesn’t dampen her spirits. She has something of a social life for the first time since she moved to the state six months ago. She’s struck up a tentative sort-of friendship with a couple of kids from her classes, but they aren’t at the level where they’ll hang out outside of school. She couldn’t if she wanted to; her foster father, a drunken waste of a man named Unkar Plutt, has her working in his garage most nights. He pays her in whatever change is left over from the money he gives her to buy groceries. Given his love of cigarettes and scratch cards, there usually isn’t much.

Tonight, though, she’s been invited to a party.

By Ben Solo, no less.

She’d had to promise Plutt she’d work for free for the whole weekend in exchange for a night off, but it’ll be worth it. She’s had a crush on Ben since their first shared English class. She hadn’t done the reading – Plutt had put her to work straight away, and she’d barely had time to settle in – but she’d been was transfixed by Ben’s quiet, eloquent take on _Lord of the Flies_. Rey had gone home that night and scoured through the book, trying to find in it the same passion Ben had evoked in her. She’d failed, and come to the conclusion that it was Ben himself who had moved her.

Over the following weeks, Rey paid close attention to him in the three classes they shared. Even so, she could never get a read on him. He was intelligent and seemed to find genuine enjoyment in books. He was equally as adept in History class, but thought social studies was a waste of time judging by the doodles in the back of his notebook. He was from a good family, and lived in a gated community a long, long way away from Plutt’s questionable neighborhood. He was friends with the football players but didn’t play any sports himself.

All this Rey knew about him, and yet he wouldn’t have even known her name if they hadn’t been put together on an English project. She found out he had a wry sense of humor that boarded on stinging when he was tired. When they studied in the library after school, he wordlessly shared his food with her once he realized she never brought any of her own. On the eve of their last day before winter break, he’d invited her to a party his friend Poe threw every year.

“It’s kind of out of the way,” he’d said, fidgeting in an endearingly nervous way. “It’s in a field near this old farmhouse. I know how it sounds,” he adds at Rey’s expression, “but it’s a local tradition. Ask around. Poe’s parents throw a bunch of money at it. There’s a bonfire and music, and to be honest I fucking hate it every year, but my parents are friends with Poe’s family so it’s a sort of unavoidable thing.”

He was rambling. Rey had already decided to say yes the moment he’d asked her, but this was an added layer of cuteness. He looked so flustered. She’d grinned at his palpable relief when she nodded.

And now the night is here. She’s taken extra care to dress nicely, and watched a few tutorials on how to apply drugstore makeup. Her hair is down and styled, but that’s more to protect her neck from the wind chill than anything. She’s pleased with how she looks.

The thumping music from the party gets louder, matching her heartrate. Ben might kiss her tonight. She might kiss him. She feels lighter than she has in months at the possibilities of the night stretching out ahead of her.

Rey steps off the road and into the field. There must be a hundred people milling around, the vast majority of whom she doesn’t recognize. They’re all kids from school; there aren’t any adults in sight. She scolds herself for feeling surprised. Just because Poe’s parents pay for the party doesn’t mean it’s a family event.

_Be cool_, she tells herself.

She approaches the bonfire. Ben hadn’t told her where to meet him, just that he’d find her. As the seconds drag by, Rey wishes they’d come up with a more concrete plan. She feels awkward and out of place by herself. Everyone around her huddles together and swigs from bottles or cans, but she hasn’t brought anything.

She’s starting to feel like she’s made a mistake when she spots Ben’s tall figure nearby. He’s with his friends, mostly football players that Rey doesn’t know. They make for an intimidating group. Rey sidles over to them but doesn’t interrupt. They continue chatting, oblivious to her.

“How about you, Solo? You ask that girl you sit with in English?”

“Rey?” Ben nods. “Yeah, I invited her.”

Rey glows. Ben acknowledging her is hardly a declaration of love, but he could have just as easily brushed her off. This seems like a good sign.

“You two seemed pretty tight during your project,” one boy says with a smirk.

Ben’s laugh is a short, mocking thing that Rey hasn’t heard from him before. Her body goes cold.

“She’ll be a good time, but I’m not bringing her home to meet my parents, you know?”

Rey thinks she’ll hear those laughs and jeers replayed in her mind for the rest of her life. They settle somewhere deep inside of her, a confirmation of what she’d always suspected but hoped wasn’t true.

Maybe she makes a noise. Maybe it’s just the universe being cruel. Either way, one of Ben’s friends catches her eye. His face blanches. He nudges Ben on the shoulder.

“Uh, Solo…”

His lip still curled, Ben follows his friend’s nod. Pure horror flashes across his face when he sees Rey standing there.

“Rey –”

She’s already striding away. She can’t let him see her cry. It’ll only give him and his horrible friends ammunition. She’s stupid. She’s an idiot. She’s so…colossally dumb for not seeing Ben Solo for what he is. She’s walked for a fucking hour to get here, and it’s another hour back. She’d taken a night off and lost two day’s pay, and for what? Humiliation and a broken heart.

The roads leading to and from the field aren’t well lit, so Rey sees the car’s headlights before they reach her. She keeps walking at her determined pace and holds her jacket tightly around her. It’s cold enough that she should be wearing a coat, but she’s still saving up for one after her sudden growth spurt. That’ll take her longer than planned now.

The car, some needlessly flashy thing, slows to a crawl beside her. Ben rolls down the window and calls her name. Rey rolls her eyes at his panicked tone. Sure, she’d been his best shot at getting laid tonight, but to come after her? He must be desperate.

“Rey,” he says again, inching the car along the road next to her. “Come on. Let me give you a ride home, please?”

And let him see Plutt’s ramshackle house? He must think she’s an idiot. Rey keeps her eyes on the road ahead.

“I’m walking,” she says. And then, because basic human decency gets the better of her, “You should, too, if you’ve been drinking.”

“I’ve haven’t,” Ben promises. “I’m fine to drive.”

“Great. Drive on back to your friends.”

Ben makes a low noise of frustration. “I don’t know what you heard –”

“Yeah, you do.”

And if he truly doesn’t, she can recite it back to him, pitch perfect.

“It’s just stupid shit guys say when they’re with their friends,” Ben insists. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Rey can’t believe she bought makeup for this. She’s going to throw everything in the trash the moment she gets back to Plutt’s. She’s going to keep her head down and study for the rest of her time in school, and then she’ll get into a great college and leave this clusterfuck of a town behind.

“I like you, Rey, I really do.”

Fuck, why does he have to say it in _that_ voice? Rey had thought that tone was reserved for when he talks about his favorite books, but now he’s using it on her. For her. Her heart’s in her throat, but she keeps walking.

“It’s just…” he continues hesitantly. “You’re not…”

“What?” Rey stops walking and whirls on him, suddenly furious. “Go on, tell me everything I’m not. If you say something I haven’t heard before, I’ll give you a blowjob. That’s all I’m good for, right?”

“No!” Ben looks scandalized. “No, of course not.”

“Who says I even wanted to meet your parents?” Her voice rings in the otherwise empty night. “Who says I didn’t just want you for _a good time_, too?”

Big words coming from someone who’s never been kissed, but Ben doesn’t need to know that. With a snarl, Rey starts walking again. The car follows her progress.

“I don’t fit in with those guys,” Ben says over the quiet rumble of the engine. “I don’t fit in anywhere. I thought that if I could just pretend to be like them…”

Rey might have had sympathy, if his efforts to be liked hadn’t involved treating her like she was only worth fucking in secret. She carries on walking. At least her rage is keeping her warm.

“I’m sorry I disrespected you.” Ben stops the car. He leans over to open the passenger side. “Let’s talk about while I drive you home. You must be freezing.”

Rey doesn’t acknowledge him. She gets a small flicker of satisfaction from his annoyed grunt, and the sound of the door closing. A moment later, the car falls into pace with her strides.

“What’s the plan here, Ben?” she asks, sparing him a withering glance. “You going to follow me all the way back to Wayside?”

Ben’s eyes widen. “You live in _Wayside_?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

Rey doubles her speed. Ben adjusts accordingly.

“I’ll either drop you off or follow you back there, yeah.”

Rey seizes upon the thread of anxiety in his tone with a sharp laugh.

“You and that pretty car wouldn’t last ten minutes in Wayside.”

She should know. She’s worked on more than one stolen car.

“All the more reason to let me drive you,” Ben says. “Once we get to your house, I’ll slow down, you can do a barrel-roll out onto the sidewalk, and then I’ll speed off. No stopping necessary.”

Rey chews her lip. On the one hand, fuck him. Fuck him for making her feel like shit, and fuck him for making her want to laugh. On the other hand, it’s cold and getting colder, and her shoes aren’t meant for angry, hour-long stomping. She doesn’t want to have to save up for a new coat _and_ new footwear.

At least Ben doesn’t look smug when she gives a single nod. He smiles in relief and opens the door for her. Rey climbs in wordlessly. She slams the door closed harder than necessary and feels victorious at Ben’s wince.


	25. Did I Ever Even Matter To You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being here ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Five: _"Did I ever even matter to you?"_

* * *

Soulmates are rare things nowadays. Or rather, finding your soulmate is. Whatever design flaw – cosmic or biological – had created the idea of a fated couple had malfunctioned, matching people across the globe who had an infinitesimally slim chance of ever meeting. Destiny had remembered to link these people together, but forgotten to arrange events so that they actually met. People went their entire lives without laying eyes upon the purported other half of themselves. Relationships have adapted. People fall in love, get married, and have children with just the same level of happiness and commitment as they assume they would with a soulmate.

Rey thought she’d be one such person. Her marks, a complicated arrangement of small, painless bumps on her inner wrist, don’t match Poe’s. She’d never cared; most of their friends in relationships don’t match. It was just a fact of modern life that soulmates rarely ended up together.

That’s why Rey is so stunned when Poe tells her he has found his soulmate.

And that he’s leaving her.

Right now.

“Did I ever even matter to you?” she asks through tears as she watches him pack the scattered things he’d left in her apartment.

Poe stops and sighs. “Of course you did. It’s just… this thing is fate, Rey. I can’t fight it.” He goes back to retrieving his things with a murmured, “I don’t want to fight it.”

How is Rey meant to argue against that? The man she loves wants to leave her for someone he’s just met. Does he even know her last name? Is his soulmate even a woman? Rey has a thousand questions, but she isn’t sure she wants to know the answers. She’ll only compare herself, and that’s a comparison she will never come out of more favorably. Poe has made his choice, and she’s going to be alone again.

When he leaves, she slams the door behind him harder than necessary. Sure, he’s ruined her future, but it’s destiny. No point in blaming him for something he didn’t ask for and can’t control.

Rey does blame him, though. She blames him a whole lot.

For the first time in her life, she’d felt settled. Everything seemed to have fallen into place. And, sure, she still has a lot of stability. She has a small but steady income, an apartment she won’t get thrown out of unexpectedly, and a group of friends she adores. But she really thought she was past that stage in her life when everyone she cared for abandoned her. If Poe could leave, who’s next?

The wine flows freely into the largest glass she owns. She watches it slosh over the sides and doesn’t stop until it’s almost full. She chugs it like it’s water, grimacing at the taste. Then she fills it up all over again. And again.

The tears are starting to seep down her cheeks when there’s a light knock on the door.

Rey storms unsteadily towards the sound. If this is Poe crawling back because he forgot his hair product, she’s going to fucking kill him.

She yanks the door open, mouth already open in preparation for a tirade.

It isn’t Poe.

Her neighbor Ben stands in the hallway, his broad frame almost filling her doorway. Despite his build (_and height, and face, and hair, and hands_, Rey adds after an appreciative glance) he looks nervous.

“There was yelling and door-slamming before,” he says by way of greeting. “I wanted to, uh, check that everything was okay?”

He sounds like he’s asking permission, which tickles Rey. What makes him feel like he needs to ask if it’s okay to care for someone’s wellbeing?

“My boyfriend left me,” she informs him, taking another generous gulp of wine. “He found his soulmate, so that’s that.”

Ben blinks. In fairness, it’s a lot to take in. Rey’s probably just imagining the spark of hope that flits across his features for the briefest of moments. It’s probably just the wine making her see things. Probably just her loneliness announcing its return, like a familiar black shroud.

Her lip trembles. Poe left her, and now she’s alone again. She sniffs and feels her face crumple. Instantly, Ben’s interest turns to alarm.

“Hey, no, don’t…”

His feeble attempts at comfort do nothing to stem Rey’s tears. Undone by wine and sorrow, she cries in earnest. It only takes the slightest rise of Ben’s hand for her to lurch forwards into him. She rests her head on his chest and continues to weep.

“Uh…okay, Rey, it’s okay, you’re okay…”

As Ben’s chest rumbles with his voice, Rey continues her earlier inventory of him. He’s solid, and warm, and he smells good. Despite clearly being thrown off-guard by her sobbing embrace, he holds her closer to him. She feels safe.


	26. I'm Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolute infant of a chapter today because real life. AKA part ??? of “Bel likes writing characters talking through doors”. Thank you for your comments and kudos! ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Six: _"I'm sorry."_

* * *

Ben tries the handle to their bedroom door as though it’s suddenly become unlocked in the last five minutes. Rey hears the heavy slump of his head hitting the wood in defeat.

“Rey,” he calls. “I’m sorry.”

“You made me look like an idiot,” she hisses. She’s made a nest of covers in the middle of their bed, and she doesn’t plan on moving any time soon. “I had _three_ people come up to me and ask if I was okay! Do you know how humiliating that is?”

She won’t mention how Rose, Finn, and Poe separately but fervently promised to kick Ben’s ass if he had upset her. She was almost tempted to take Rose up on the offer, just to see how the petite woman would manage it. That she _would_ manage it, Rey did not doubt.

“I didn’t know!” Ben sounds exasperated. “I just thought she was being nice!”

Rey throws a pillow at the door. Her boyfriend’s obliviousness to how attractive he was could be endearing. It could also, in situations like these, be completely infuriating.

“No one who touches your arm that much is just being nice.”

“Well, yeah, I know that now.”

Rey throws another pillow.


	27. I'd Like For You To Leave Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canonverse, post-TLJ. Part one of two, because the mind is willing to write but the flesh is weak (and by that I mean I am hungover). Thank you for your lovely comments and kudos ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Seven: _"I'd like for you to leave now."_

* * *

He catches up to her in a cantina, of all places.

Rey sits in a corner, nursing a drink that has been specially brewed for the occasion. It’s some kind of holiday on Pasaana, and the crowds are raucous with unspent energy. They cheer and drink and cheer again until Rey can barely hear her own thoughts. She’s supposed to be meeting a contact here to discuss supplies for the Resistance, but this is the wrong venue for practical discussions of war. Poe and Finn sit nearby on separate tables. They aren’t anticipating any trouble, but that doesn’t really mean anything these days. Trouble found them years ago and has had a hard time letting go since.

Kylo’s arrival is so unobtrusive that it takes Rey a moment to notice him. His entrances seem like they should be telegraphed by lightning storms and ominous chords, but instead he opens the cantina doors and simply stands at the top of the steps for a moment. Even from a distance, his height and stance are intimidating. He’s wearing another mask, run through with thin red lines. Rey can’t explain the disappointment she feels at seeing it, but it strikes deeply within her.

_Enemy_, she identifies, choosing that one simple word over any of the complicated designations she could give Kylo Ren.

She stands quickly, her lightsaber already in her palm. She doesn’t activate it yet, not with so many civilians around, but her thumb inches towards the switch. Poe and Finn flank her a moment later.

“What’s he doing here?” Finn growls.

“No idea,” Rey says, not taking her eyes from Kylo. “We need to clear the place.”

Kylo takes one step forward, and a wall of dark energy crashes into Rey. She staggers backwards in shock. Finn’s hand wraps around her arm instantly, steadying her.

“Something’s different,” Rey says, her breaths coming out as harsh gasps. Kylo’s masked head turns in her direction, and she knows without being able to see his eyes that his gaze is searing into her. “Something’s wrong.”

The last syllable has barely left her lips before the cantina falls into a dead silence. Rey glances around, unnerved. Every lifeform in the cramped space has stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing. Their expressions are blank, like they’re droids waiting for their next command. Even Finn and Poe have glazed looks.

Kylo nods once. “Much better.”

Rey swallows at the sound of the raspy vocoder. Has he always had this much power in the Force? There’s a mass of darkness swirling around him, like he’s channelling something new. What could have given him this much strength over so many people?

With two gloved hands, Kylo reaches up and unclasps his mask. His hair sticks to his sallow skin as he places the mask carelessly on a nearby table. His eyes seek out Rey’s and _burn_ when he finds her. Rey tells herself the tightness in her chest is just adrenaline. Anger and sadness and regret batter the walls of her mind, and the worst part is that she can’t tell if those emotions are hers or not.

The energy around Kylo ripples and constricts.

“I’d like for you to leave now,” he tells the patrons.

His tone is calm and polite, but there’s the slightest hint of strain in his features. A muscle beneath his eye jumps, and his fingers flex around the handle of his lightsaber. He looks like he’s barely holding his composure, and Rey wouldn’t blame the patrons who scramble out of his way even if there wasn’t a heavy undercurrent of suggestion beneath his request.

Finn and Poe obey just the same as everyone else, but their movements are stiff and jerky. Despite their eerily smooth features, they’re both fighting the compulsion as hard as they can. Rey watches them leave with a small sense of relief. At least they won’t be caught up in whatever mess she and Kylo are about to create.

Hatred, thick and constricting, swarms Kylo as Finn passes by. He shoots a glare at the former Stormtrooper that’s vicious enough that Rey moves forward protectively.

“I’ll deal with him later,” Kylo assures her in a snarl.

The cantina door closes, and they are alone.


	28. Truth Hurts, Doesn't It?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of yesterday. Thank you for your comments and kudos! ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Eight: _"Truth hurts, doesn't it?"_

* * *

Kylo stands at the top of the short set of stairs, his back to the closed door. Whatever darkness he’s steeped himself in curls around him. And yet, through it all, Rey still senses that glimmer of Ben Solo fighting to get through.

“You’ve shown me so many times which side you’re on, but I still don’t believe you.” At the flicker in his expression, Rey softens her tone. “You want to come back to the light, Ben. I can feel it.”

The dark energy constricts, angry and possessive. Kylo’s eyes flash golden. He glances to the side, as though listening intently to someone. He looks like he has one foot in another world. Rey can’t tell if he stepped into it willingly or if something dragged him there. The darkness around him clenches again like a fist. She angles herself away, wary.

“What happened to you?” she asks.

“You should know; you were there.” Kylo’s lips twitch, closer to a scowl than a smile. “Or rather, you weren’t.”

Before Rey can ask what he means, visions slam into her mind.

_Rey, leaving him as Starkiller Base cracks in two._

_Rey, snarling and desperate as she tries to steal his grandfather’s lightsaber in a burning throne room._

_Rey, looking coldly down at him through the Force as he kneels, supplicant, at the base of the Falcon._

She shakes her head to clear the memories. A sense of desperation lingers in her mind, like the memories have raked claws through her thoughts. Kylo had felt so alone every time he watched her leave him, either physically or emotionally. Rey feels his pain as though it’s her own. It _is_ her own.

“I keep offering you everything, and you keep leaving me behind bleeding or unconscious.” Kylo tilts his head, eyes sharp. “That’s not how it’ll go today.”

“Have you found something else to offer me?” Rey asks. She means it as a taunt, but it comes out as more of a plea.

_Tell me you understand what I want, _she thinks. _Even though I don’t understand it myself._

Kylo, oblivious at all the wrong times, shakes his head.

“You won’t be leaving without me this time.”

Rey silences her instinct to lunge and defend herself from the low threat in his voice. She can fight if she has to, but she has too many words inside her that she wants to get out first.

“I won’t have to leave you behind if you come with me,” she says. “Your mother wants to see you. She’s never given up hope that you’ll come back. She loves you, just like your father loved you.”

The breath leaves Kylo like he’s been punched. Maybe it’s because he’s rejected the light so many times before, or maybe it’s the darkness around him infecting her, but feels no sympathy.

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?”

“How would you know?” Kylo shoots back. “You’ve spent your whole life running from the truth.”

Rey shrugs. “I’m not running now.”

“You’ll try to.” Kylo moves down the steps and settles into an opening stance. His lightsaber spits fiery energy when he activates it. “I won’t let you.”

Rey thumbs her own lightsaber to life and readies herself for a fight. If Kylo isn’t in a talking mood, that’s fine with her. She’ll just have to wear him down until he is.

With a vicious cry, she attacks.


	29. Stop Lying To Me!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've had kid!Ben, and now here's kid!Rey.  
Thank you for being here ❤

* * *

Day Twenty-Nine: _"Stop lying to me!"_

* * *

There’s a man in Rey’s home.

She’d only turned away for a second to check on the bubbling veg-meat, and now he’s standing there. He’s tall and broad, uncomfortably out of place in her cramped AT-AT, and he’s looking around with a perplexed expression. Rey doesn’t hesitate. She grabs the staff leaning against the wall and lunges for him.

Her staff slices through him like he’s air.

Without meeting the resistance she was expecting, Rey stumbles over. She rights herself before hitting the floor and retreats to a safe distance. The man might as well be a giant for all the height he has on her, and her main form of defense is useless.

“Are you a ghost?” she asks, trying to stop her voice from trembling.

The man stares at her like _she’s_ the ghost. A shaken sigh leaves his lips.

“Rey?”

Rey’s own breath stutters. The ghost knows her name. She must be cursed.

“Who are you?” she demands. “How do you know me?”

She jabs her staff in his direction while she waits for him to answer. He stands like a wide-eyed statue. Despite his intimidating all-black clothing, he doesn’t seem to be a threat. Eventually, he swallows.

“I… recognized your hairstyle.”

Rey lowers her staff as hope flutters in her chest. There’s a reason she’s never changed her three buns.

“Did my parents tell you to come here?” she asks, her voice hushed with excitement.

The man blinks. His shock fades into something sad. He shakes his head once, his long dark hair swaying with the movement.

“No,” he says gently.

Disappointment settles heavily in Rey’s stomach before she scolds herself. _Of_ _course_ her parents haven’t sent a stranger in their place. They’ll come back for her themselves, and they’ll be so proud when they see how well she’s done.

“Then who are you?” she asks again. She keeps a tight grip on her staff but doesn’t raise it. If she can’t touch the man, he won’t be able to touch her either. She’s safe.

The man shakes his head, seeming as confused as she feels.

“I think I’m dreaming of you,” he mutters. “Or you’re dreaming of me.”

“Why would I dream of you?” Rey asks, scrunching up her nose. “I don’t know you.”

The man looks so unhappy with her words that for a moment, Rey thinks she ought to apologize. The moment passes into awkward silence.

“I’m Ben,” he says finally. “We know each other when you’re grown up.”

“Oh.” Maybe Rey _is_ dreaming. That would explain things in a better way than anything she can come up with. “Are you my husband?”

He’d be a good husband, Rey decides as Ben chokes on his answer. He’s big enough to fight away anyone who tries to steal her portions, and he’s tall enough to reach the places she’s having to stack and climb chairs to get to. Her home is a little bit too small for him, but they’ll work together to find some fabric and then he can make his own sleeping hammock right next to hers. He can stay awake while she sleeps, and makes sure no one tries to sneak in. When she’s older, they can hold hands and have a baby and he can protect all of them.

It would be nice to have a husband. Almost as nice as having her parents back.

But then Ben shakes his head quickly, like he’s panicked at the thought of being married to her.

“No,” he says, forcefully enough that Rey is a little bit offended. “We’re not – you – no.”

Alright.

Well.

She’s _glad_ he isn’t her husband. He looks too sad. She wants a nice husband who makes her smile and who loves her.

Before she can inform Ben of any of these things, he steps forward.

“Is this where you live?” he asks, looking tentatively around the space.

Rey brightens, proud of her tiny home.

“It is!” She points out the corners of her AT-AT. “I have some flowers, and I’m making a doll, and I found an old helmet! It’s too big for me but it might fit you.” She pauses. “You can’t keep it, though. It’s mine.”

“I won’t touch it,” he promises. Something that might be a smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

Somehow, Rey believes him. He might be too sad to be her husband, but she thinks it would be nice to be friends.

“Do you have enough to eat?” he asks, his eyes lingering on the still-frying veg-meat. “To drink?”

Rey gnaws her bottom lip. People usually only ask her that because they want to share what she has. Unkar Plutt was stingy with his last trade, and she’s trying her best to stockpile water for the next time a storm blows through.

“I don’t have much.” And then, already annoyed with herself, she adds, “I can spare some if you need it.”

Ben looks at her for a long time without saying anything. His eyes shine, but Rey doesn’t understand what she said that might have made him cry.

“No, I’m okay,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

His eyes skim over the far wall, tallying the marks Rey has etched upon them. He seems to know what they are without asking, because he says, “You’ll be here awhile yet.”

For a moment, Rey doesn’t understand. Then clarity hits her with a jolt of excitement. Ben is from the _future. _He _knows things_.

“Before my parents come back?” she guesses. “Have they come back for me in the future?” Silly question, of course they have. “When? Where do we live now? Are we still on Jakku?”

Ben looks away for a moment before meeting her eyes with a sense of fatal determination.

“They don’t come back, Rey,” he says, his voice quiet but firm. “You grow up and leave Jakku all by yourself.”

That’s… no. That isn’t right. Rey shakes her head.

“You’re wrong,” she whispers, scanning his face for signs that he might be playing a trick on her.

Ben only looks back with that same grim expression.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he murmurs. “You’ll never see your parents again.”

“Stop lying to me!”

Rey’s voice breaks on the last word. Tears spring to her eyes and she blinks rapidly to try and stop from crying. Wasting water is the worst thing to do on Jakku.

“I’m not,” Ben says softly. He gloved hands squeeze into a fist and then unclench. “I’ve never lied to you.”

Despair wells in Rey’s chest. It rises, threatening to overwhelm her, until –

– she realizes it’s okay.

This is just a dream. She’s dreaming, and Ben isn’t real, and his words are just lies that her silly brain is making up.

It’s all okay.

Rey swallows down her sadness as Ben watches her from the other side of the space. His dark eyes seem attuned to her, like he’s concerned about what she might do next. When Rey grins, he looks puzzled.

“Do you want me to show you around Niima Outpost?” she asks cheerfully, grabbing her staff and outside.

Ben hesitates before following her.

“Is there a graveyard around here?” he asks, ducking his head to avoid banging it on the low door frame. “For paupers?”

Rey doesn’t know what a pauper is, but she knows of a place said to hold thousands of bones.

“There _is_ one,” she says, pulling a face as a hot breeze blows sand over her, “but it makes me feel weird when I go near it so I stay away.”

She turns back to check that Ben is following her, but she can’t see him.

She’s alone again.


	30. You're Worth It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst? I don't know her. Can you believe we're almost at the end of the month!! Thank you for your lovely comments and kudos ❤

* * *

Day Thirty: _"You're worth it."_

* * *

_You’re worth it._

The first time Rey says it to Ben, they’re in the supermarket, idling in the cheese aisle. Ben has been scanning the back of an imported packet of Tomino for the last couple of minutes. He’d put it down once, and then picked it back up with an uncertain expression.

“Go on,” Rey urges, nudging him with her elbow and grinning. “Live your best cheese life. You’re worth it.”

She’s about to follow up with other vague affirmations (_“Follow your dreams!”_) when Ben turns to her, wide-eyed. His lips parts softly but he doesn’t speak. He looks at her as though she’d recited poetry for him. Rey feels her heart break in the same moment Ben’s heart becomes whole.

It turns into their private version of _I love you_, said to give support in public or to avoid smirks from their friends.

_You’re worth it,_ Ben says, whirling her around the kitchen of their new home.

_You’re worth it_, Rey says, soothing him after his fourth nightmare that week.

_You’re worth it,_ Ben murmurs, kissing the inside of her thigh.

_You’re worth it._


	31. It's Time To Say Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to [Turn Loose the Mermaids by Nightwish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJS5g4-p3K4) while writing this and made myself cry, so that’s how my Halloween is going. More notes at the end of the chapter ❤

* * *

Day Thirty-One: _"It's time to say goodbye."_

* * *

Ben sits on a bench overlooking a lake. He can’t remember when he sat down, or even where he is, but there’s an enveloping sense of serenity that stops him from panicking. The lake is enclosed by tall pine trees, stretching as far as the eye can see. The air is pleasant, the lake without ripples, and the sky cloudless.

Warm weight appears by his side. Ben smiles at his wife, who smiles back with the light he had always adored. Wherever he and Rey are, their skin is smooth and untouched by time.

“Hello, sweetheart.” He glances around, confused but not concerned. “I don’t know where we are.”

“We’re at the family lake house,” Rey tells him. She slips her fingers through his. “It was somewhere you loved. Somewhere you felt comfortable.”

Ben follows her gaze, and sure enough a large home overlooks the lake nearby. If he concentrates, he can see shades of children flitting through the trees. They laugh and play and beckon him to join. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. Contentment washes through him.

“We raised a family,” he remembers, turning back to Rey.

“We did.” Her grin breaks into a laugh. “And we made plenty of mistakes, but none of the ones that our parents made.”

Ben nods to himself. “That’s something.”

“It’s everything.”

Rey reaches up to cradle his cheek with her free hand. Ben nuzzles her palm. He’s slowly losing sight of the life they had built together. He can’t remember their children’s names. He isn’t sure if they had grandchildren. But he knows he loves her. That feels like the last piece of knowledge he’ll carry with him.

“Can we stay here?” he asks, his lips brushing her skin.

Rey smiles sadly. “No, my love. This is just a resting place. One last stop before your next great journey.”

Ben pulls back slightly, keeping Rey’s fingertips on his cheek.

“It’s time to say goodbye,” he says.

He’d only meant to test the words out, perhaps make them into a question, but once they’re spoken he understands the truth behind them.

Rey nods, still smiling. Her eyes shine with tears, but, just like everything else around Ben, she radiates peace.

“Rest calm.” She presses her lips against his. “I’ll be along soon.”

Ben feels a lifetime of love in that final kiss.

There’s no loss, not in whatever pocket of the universe they’re in, but the air still seems to sigh when Rey leans back. She tucks his hair behind his ears to stop it from falling into his eyes, an action perfected over decades of affection.

“I love you,” she says.

Ben smiles. “I love you, too.”

He blinks once.

The bench is empty beside him. He isn’t sure where he is, or if he was just speaking with someone, but he knows it’s time to leave. Ben stands. The movement feels strange for a moment, as though it’s something he hasn’t done in months, but his body soon remembers how to walk. He moves slowly away from the bench.

Something beautiful is waiting for him beyond the tree line. He isn’t sure what, only that there’s no fear within him. Memories of warmth and laughter echo around the lake as he walks away. Ben disappears into the forest, alone but loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Thank you so, so much for all of your support this last month. I am so grateful. If I don't write anything before TRoS, I'm sure I'll be writing something after. Check me out on [twitter @starry_clusters](https://twitter.com/starry_clusters) for further nonsense.
> 
> All my love,
> 
> Bel 💖


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